I'm in time out.

And I have every intention of staying in time out for the next 30 minutes, at which point I will begin the mad rush to get Mia to school on time and then get after everyone because WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE and then get to the school 7 minutes early and have to sit in the car until the preschool door is unlocked while Mia rolls her eyes at her mom's crazy time management skills.

I deserve all the eye rolls in all the land.

I really have nothing to say right now. I've had a lot of bloggable thoughts lately. Most about Home Depot and sandwiches, but I'm not really in the mood to get into that right now. Because...well, I'm in time out.

But I seriously do love sandwiches. And I think about them a lot. If I hired a chef I'd be like...Chef! Bring me a sandwich! For every meal.

Instead of Home Depot and Sandwiches, let's talk about the 2 board games I played with my littles today (and after that feel free to eat a sandwich...at Home Depot, if you like). I'm hopeful that airing my FEEEELINGS will help me work through the quiet rage that landed me in this self-imposed time out.

Up first

Candy Land.

I love Candy Land! It's the greatest. Super easy to play. Quick, fun, woooo...Great idea children, yes we can play Candy Land.

Candy Land is not always fun.

Now I know.

It was fun at first, for like 5 minutes, which was how long it took me to win. Which was pure luck, because that's all Candy Land is. I was feeling really good about things. I won, the children were taking it in stride, accepting their loss, good things were happening. So I was like, yessss of course you can keep playing until you both finish too! This will be sooo familyfunish!

THIRTY FIVE MINUTES LATER

I was bald from pulling my hair out because EVERY TIME someone was about to cross into the candy castle they were sent basically back to the beginning of the game. Both children had lost focus and were constantly bouncing around the board moving the pieces, bending the cards and, really, if you don't know Mia well you won't fully understand how accurate this is, but she is a kangaroo. A whistling kangaroo. And when she loses focus she bounces around the room like an eternally moving, giant bouncy ball. Special bonus, the longer the bouncing goes on the less aware she becomes of anything in her path. (This is not especially ideal board game playing behavior)

It's exhausting. Yet lovable. But not when it goes on and on and on.

Which it did, because my darling kangaroo, is a whistling kangaroo and kangaroos only learn to whistle at her level of expertise by being EXTREMELY persistent about never ever ever stopping a task at hand no matter how uninterested the kangaroo has become in doing the task.

So, to stop the game would have saved my sanity, but only for about 2 seconds when my sanity would have been swallowed up in an epic fit of crying for the next two days about stopping the game before it was over. Parenting is a game of choosing battles and I decided to not battle the fit, but to deal with the kangaroo.

12 gray hairs later Mia passed finish and another 10 gray hairs passed and Zoey finished too, because apparently she's going to be able to whistle soon too.

I had promised them 2 games. WHY DID I DO THAT? I DON'T KNOW.

The kids insisted I keep my promise, even though there was no chance in this world of lovely worlds that they were going to have the attention span to do anything like play . . .

Super Why ABC Letter Game.

First of all. I hate this game. The spinner is terrible. SO TERRIBLE. The spinning part doesn't hook in so every time the kids spin it it falls off and they have to start over. ALSO. WHILE I'M HERE COMPLAINING IN ALL CAPS. The spinner includes: 1, 2, 3, and Spin Again. (I think. maybe there's a 4 too. If you care, YOU go look.) WHHHY is there a spin again? Why should I spin again? Why not give an answer now? Miss a turn may make sense. Spin Again? NO.

Mooooving on.

I feel like the kids could learn some valuable skills from this game. But whenever I've played it Zoey (3, as a reminder, also this game is for ages 3 and up) gets cards asking her to spell entire words. She is three. I don't even want her able to spell words yet. Mia, on the other hand (5) gets cards asking her to find a capital V, while the card shows a lowercase v. That is not hard. Not for Mia, not for Zoey, not for a puppy.

It's just luck and it's just random, but it happens EVERY TIME. So Mia gets all the cards and Zoey gets exactly none of them, unless I cheat AND I DO EVEN THOUGH IT GOES AGAINST EVERYTHING I BELIEVE IN.

So it was terrible. But the kids are happy and everyone lived through the experience. I stayed calm and immediately put myself in time out so I wouldn't scare anyone with the anger in my soul.

But now I need a sandwich.

bye.