KILL! KILL!! KILL!!!

Does anyone else have those days where you feel like Mrs. Hanagain on 'Annie'? That is kind of what I felt like today. We had preschool today, which was a bit more wild than normal, and I felt like Landon just wasn't ever getting into it all, and instead felt like it was just a time to see how wild he could be. Afterwards I had three visiting teaching appointments set up. I knew I wouldn't have a ton of time to run home and get everyone lunch, and Grant could pretty much kiss a nap good-bye. So I decided to just go through Wendy's and get the kids some lunch and Grant could get a little cat nap in the car while they ate. Luckily, he did nap for about 30 minutes! First let me start by saying, I LOVE going visiting teaching. I really do. I love the girls we visit and I love my companion. I especially love going on Friday's when I don't have to take my kids, but that doesn't always work out. Anyway, after the three appointments, and after not being home all day, I was a bit spent when we got home (that's right Amanda, I used the word 'spent' to describe how I was feeling!) The kids wanted to play outside with the sidewalk chalk, which I was more than happy to let them do. After a while I noticed they had dumped the chalk idea, and decided to make mud pies instead. Mainly because I'm lazy I thought 'Well, you're only a kid once. Have at it' but I decided to go inside with Grant so he wouldn't get into all the mess. When I checked on them again, they were in the back yard playing with their mud pies. Then, when I went to check on them, about 3 minutes later, I couldn't see them. I could hear them, so I called for them to come where I could see them. Then I realized they were throwing mud all over my neighbors house!!! OH! That's when Mrs. Hanagain's line 'KILL! KILL!! KILL!!!' started running through my head. They were covered in mud so I made them wash off in the bath then marched them over to our neighbors (who were luckily home, because they're usually not) and made them confess what they did and apologize. Thank goodness our neighbors are SO nice and the lady very kindly, but seriously, responded with 'Thank you for apologizing and taking responsibility for what you did. I'm glad to know you won't do it again".
We then had to borrow their water spigot, because ours is broken, to wash off their house. My kids were so excited about using the water hose that I made them get rags from the house and use that while I got to use the hose. Heaven knows they can't have fun when they're supposed to be being punished!

I totally had flashbacks of my childhood during this whole ordeal. My kids handled the confessing and apologizing a LOT better than I did. When I was little my sister and I were at the store with my mom. As we went up and down each row Amanda and I would take about 5 of each coupon we saw hanging off the shelves. By the time we got to the checkout line my mom noticed what we had done and made us give all of our precious coupons (which, by the way, we had big plans for using those to play store at home!) to the check-out lady and apologize for stealing them. We bawled like little babies. I was actually a bit disappointed that this experience wasn't a traumatizing for my kids. Does that make me a bad mom?