God help me, I'm turning into my parents!

I just uttered the following words:

"You two are this close to spending the rest of the day in your rooms!"

It's official: I have become my parents.

This is the last day of the school's winter break (THANK GOD), and I'm beginning to understand in a real and very frightening way why it is that some mammals kill and eat their young. It's not because they're hungry, oh no; rather, it's because the little ones are a pain in the ass at times.

Gee, you're thinking, what a simply awful thing for a mother to say about her own kids!

Yep. Go ahead and call CPS. I dare you. I double-dare you! Call them. I'll even give you the number.

I had to take them to the grocery store with me this morning, and the two of them just would not stop poking each other and whining. Oh my God, I swear I thought I was going to blow an aneurysm in my head. The cashier was laughing at me, but in that "Hey, it's ok, I have a couple of bratty kids too" sort of way, so I could deal with that and not rip her throat out.

Even now, after they've been breakfasted and are watching Dragon Tales, the whining has not ceased. Now, I know that their bad behavior lately is largely a ploy for negative attention. The therapist says that they're likely more badly behaved for me because they feel more secure in my love for them, blah-blah-blah. I'm sick of it.

Every time I sit down with my stack of journal articles (now culled down to 6), to begin fleshing out my research paper, "something" happens. Whether it's a mini-flood in the upstairs bathroom, to a shower of 378 Cheerios all over the living room floor, it's always something that requires my immediate attention, a scolding, and an appropriate punishment.

I ask them if they behave like this for their dad. They say no. He says no. Nope. Mommy is the lucky beneficiary of this misbehavior, so once again, for the umpteenth time, I have to stop what I'm doing, making sure to hit ctrl-s to save it, get up, and kick some ass. Ok, so maybe not that severe. There is always a loss of privvies and time spent in their room, reflecting on their misdeeds. (ok, that bit was pure sarcasm)

I always try to take a break from what I'm doing to spend some "positive" time with them, reading to them, sometimes just cuddling with them on the couch, coloring with them etc. But lately with all of my coursework, I've had more to deal with and less time, but I still make sure that the evenings they're here are 100% Mommy-Daughters time before they go to bed. Still, I get the constant misbehavior when I'm doing something else, reading, writing, studying. It could get worse, too.

Anyone know a good babysitter?

Today for lunch, being the Good Mommy that I am always conscious of my kids' nutritional well-being, I made the girls grilled ham & cheese sandwiches (or sammiches for the purists out there), tomato soup and a side of fresh fruit, with their choice of milk, water or chocolate milk.

Mommy's lunch, on the other hand, consisted of a Diet Coke with Lime, 5 200-mg tablets of Ibuprofen and 1-mg of Klonopin. If that doesn't kill my headache or at least make me ignore it, then nothing will. Later this afternoon, I plan to bribe my children with the promise of ice cream after supper if they will just let me nap for a bit this afternoon.

I'm sure that the child-free of you out there are appalled at my parenting techniques.

Ok.

Some parents out there must be equally disgusted.

Um, ok.

While you're muttering about my horrendous abilities, if you could shoot me over the name of a cheap, reliable, non-pedophilic baby-sitter in my neighborhood, that would be swell. Believe it or not bribery has its place. I used to be anti-bribery, thinking that kids ought to do what was right because it was the right thing to do.

Ok, stop laughing.

Now, if the promise of a pre-bedtime movie, a small dish of ice cream or 2 homemade chocolate chip cookies can guarantee me two hours of relative peace, then I say screw the naysayers... unless they're volunteering to babysit my kids for me.