Brandon wants to start doing the dishes.  He is only seven and can't reach the sink.  We have a dishwasher though.  I think he is still too young/short but I'm not sure.  Do you let your kids do dishes?  Do they do a good job?  At what age do you think kids are able to do dishes.   I would like advice.  Because if he wants to do chores I want to let him, I just want to make sure they are age appropriate.

Have you ever been cranky for the simple reason that you are hungry?  Well that was me today. I went on an errand to the bank and discovered I was starving. The bank took forever which of course made me really pissy.  So I drove over to my favorite little sandwich place that has a drive through and ordered my favorite sandwich (with no oregano please because that shit taste like burned marijuana) and extra pickles.  Then the drive up girl starts saying, "I'm sorry what did you say you want banana peppers?"

"NO I WANT PICKLES"

To which she replies, "so you want peppers on your veggie right?"  Which means I almost have to kill her but I do that thing instead where you are screaming out your car window to the little speaker at the drive up like an idiot until they hear you.  Which of course meant that she called my diet Pepsi a Dr. Pepper and I had to yell even more. 

I pull up to wait behind another car and around this time text my husband that, "I'm getting food, I'm in cranky hungry mode.  It's not pretty."

He laughs at me and then I pull up to the window and the girl takes my money and I hear, "Uh oh this veggie wasn't supposed to have the spice shaker, quick make a new one before she pulls up here."

I HAD ALREADY PULLED UP THERE.  My next text read, "things are about to get ugly, they fucked up my order and are starting over."

Then I asked for a bag of chips and the girl smiled and just kept staring at the extra money in my hand.  She couldn't hear me over her little earphone ordering device.  Here I'm thinking, "I'll order the chips and snack on those until I get back to work to prevent me from ramming things with my truck," and this bitch is smiling stupidly at me.  The third time I ask the manager finally hears me and says he will ring me up at another register.  

Around this time I start looking at the pink pen in my center console thinking, "mmm pink it will taste like strawberries right?  Pink is a flavor, I bet that pen taste good."

I finally get my drink and finally my food and go to leave.  But just as I put the straw in my cup it bends in half and does that thing where it gets a hole in it so that every time you take a drink you can't actually suck anything up and you just sit there trying and trying to get a drink while nothing happens.

The final text to the husband read, "And now I broke a hole in my straw. The whole day is ruined."

Yes I was in a bad place.  I finally get my food, get on the road and come back to work only to discover they only half filled my tiny cup of soup so there wasn't sufficient soup to dunk my sammich into, and my straw was broken, and I only got one slice of tomato and DUDE WHERE ARE MY PICKLES????

I finally ate.  But I'll tell you, those twenty minutes were the longest twenty minutes.  It was touch and go there for a moment.  I'm still a little upset about my soup to sammich dunk ratio.  

I guess this is what happens after spending 14 hours in a movie theater to watch the entire Twilight movie series.  You are a little cranky the next day. 

 

Updated to add: I just received this comment from Beylit, this shit made my day:

"My friends and I have classified the hunger crankiness in two phrases. First is 'Fat girl needs a sammich'. This is the milder of the two. It is the vaguely cranky and unpleasant point that can be easily saved by munching on something. Second is the much more severe 'Bitch needs a cracker'. At this point you will probably start consuming souls if some form of nourishment is not shoved in your mouth RIGHT NOW! Everyone within my circle of friends takes things very seriously when someone says they have reached 'Bitch needs a cracker', as they should."

While reading my old blog I came across this post…wow, I have the best kids ever

 

 While visiting a friend who had just bought a new water slide complete with a spray gun apparatus, my son got frustrated when the other kids wouldn't share. His remedy to this was to drop his drawers, grab his entire package (berries and all) and AIM at the kids with his, "squirt gun," while yelling I squirt you I squirt you and shooting pee all over the kids and the slide. I was mortified, the other two adults there just laughed at it. PEE! HE PEED ON KIDS! WHILE SHOUTING HE WOULD SQUIRT THEM! WHILE HOLDING HIS STUFF AND THRUSTING HIS HIPS OUT AS FAR AS POSSIBLE TO GET THE MOST OUT OF HIS AIM!

I should start this off by saying that when I started typing this I actually couldn't remember how old my son was.  It started out with me saying, "man seven is hard."  But then I thought, "wait, he isn't seven, seven is so hold, he must be more like five, but Codi is turning five so he can't be five, his pants are a size eight but I don't think he is eight yet is he? No he must be seven, but seven seems old enough to be graduating high school and surely I would have noticed if seven years passed by now right?"  Finally I gave in and used the calculator.  Brandon is seven.  I think. 

You guys seven is going to kill me.  Seven year old boys have an attitude that can rival any sixteen year old girl on her period.  Brandon has learned to back talk like no ones business.  Sometimes he will say something that will stop me in my tracks because I don't know if I should laugh at the smart aleck remark or punish him.  I can't tell you how many times my husband has had to turn away so Brandon wouldn't see him laugh at how bad I just got shut down. 

Seven and I are not getting along.  This child makes me want to pull my hair out.  He ARGUES. OVER. EVERYTHING. He will argue about the sky being blue or water being wet if he had the chance.

Not to mention apparently seven is the age where he now has to try clothes on before I can buy them.  No longer can I just go purchase clothing in the size of his age.  Nope. Now we have to try it all on.  He has to try out all of the buttons to make sure they work.  Some are too short, too long, too tight, too baggy.  Some just "feel weird."  Some have pockets in the wrong spot.  Also seven is the last age they put adjustable waist in the pants (technically a size 8 but he has now moved into the size 10 range of height) which means I have to hunt down pants that are long enough but skinny enough and OMFG they are jeans, he is a boy IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD.  

Seven is also the age where shoes only fit for about a week before your kids foot grows thirteen sizes and he needs all new shoes and not just any shoes, but play shoes, PE shoes, winter shoes, flip flops, slippers (and okay maybe all the shoes are my fault since I didn't have a girl and shoes are the only cute things I can buy for boys but still).  Seven is also the age where they stop treating their shoes all nice and instead shred them up to an unrecognizable pulp making it so they can't be passed down to his little brother.  This means that when Codi reaches size eleven I will no longer have any shoes to pass down to him.  Brandon is currently in a 2-2.5.  Two more shoe sizes and he and I will have the same size foot.

Did I mention he only has about 9 more inches until he is as tall as me.  Not cool people.  How on earth am I supposed to put a kid in time out when I am looking up at him?  Don't even get me started on trying to carry a sleeping 64 pound seven year old to bed up ten stairs.  It's pathetic.  I tried once a few weeks ago.  I nearly dropped him.  He was slipping out of my arms, feet dragging on the ground and it took me about three minutes to get up two steps.  My husband finally walked out when I was on the last step and just laughed at me because I looked like I had just run a marathon when all I had done was carry a seven year old giant up 9 stairs.  He is no longer allowed to fall asleep anywhere but his own bed or he is going to stay where he falls asleep.  

Seven is also the age where boys turn into some sort of human garbage disposal.  Brandon is always hungry.  He eats well too.  We make him eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast (other things too but always complete meals), I pack him at least four snacks for school and a lunch big enough to feed two kids.  Every day I pick him up and the first thing he says is, "I'M HUNGRY."  If he is out of school he will eat lunch at work with me and then twenty minutes later declare himself starting and somehow woo my mom into buying him a second lunch.  I've had to start more then doubling the portions I cook for dinner because he now eats a portion equivalent to my husbands plate size and then an hour later will declare himself hungry again.  I don't know what to do with this.  I can't keep enough food in the house.  I try and buy all healthy snack, and avoid red 40, and high fructose corn syrup which just means I already spend an unreasonable amount of money on food but when my seven year old starts eating like he has a twin living inside his stomach, well hell  I'm going to have to get a third job.  

Y'all, everyone warns you about the terrible twos.  People mention the awful threes, but NO ONE prepares you for SEVEN YEAR OLD BOY!  

Consider yourself warned.

I work for a heating company.  Part of my job is to call my customers to schedule their appointments, or when my tech is on his way over to fix their furnace I need to call and make sure they are home.  This week alone I have been hung up on at least three times a day.  As soon as I say, "Hi is this____", or "Hi this is Shannon with" they hang up on me.  I had to call one lady back twice yesterday and finally I just rattled out, "WE ARE TRYING TO COME FIX YOUR FURNACE I JUST NEED TO MAKE SURE SOMEONE IS HOME."  She felt so bad for hanging up on me, and even admitted she just flat out hung up the phone thinking I was someone calling about voting.  Half of my clients phones go to voicemail now because they are screening their calls.  That means I have to leave them a message then my service tech has to sit there while we wait for them to call back and tell me they are home or not. 

I cannot wait for voting season to be over.  It's never been so hard to do my job as it has been this last week.  We never call a customer unless they have an appointment or they have asked me to call them.  I would think if someone had no heat they would answer their phone.  I cannot wait for people to stop hanging up on me.  

I can't even get ahold of my grandma right now because she won't answer her phone until the election is done.  She has caller ID but she has been getting so many calls she doesn't even check the caller ID anymore if the phone isn't near her.   

I voted today.  Voting is almost over, and then will the madness stop?  Because I'm so tired of my own home phone ringing, but more tired of being hung up on.

A big problem with me is that I have issues with sound.  I have incredible hearing.  I've had my hearing checked and I rate in the exceptional range.  The problem with that is that I hear EVERYTHING.  The second problem is that I cannot handle hearing repetitive sounds.  Pens clicking, shoes tapping, balls bouncing etc.  When things get really bad I cannot handle any sounds.  For example; my dog itching.  The sound of my dog itching drives me out of my mind.  This is a huge issue because my dog has severe allergies and itches about eleven hours a day.  I sleep with ear plugs in even if I am home alone because I can hear every car that passes outside, every tree branch that moves, every mouse that crawls around, EVERY. SINGLE. THING.  I don't get a lot of sleep. Especially living near a freeway.  If my husband taps his hand on the steering wheel in the car I freak out. I actually FREAK OUT.  I get mad.  If my son starts clicking his toy gun over and over and over I totally tense up and feel a break down come on.  If Brandon turns on any electrical gadget I cringe. When people close cabinets and they even slightly slam it, my brain hurts.  Because of that I close cabinets so gently that sometimes they don't even close all the way.  But it is better then hearing the cabinet close.  The sound of Ugg boots dragging around during the winter really really pisses me off.  People need to pick up their feet.  

To sum it up, I have massive sound issues.

So tonight I'm sitting at home in the dark in the silence trying to read.  I've had a long week at work having both kids in the office making noise.  Add in the kid noise to the sound of phones ringing, and the kids TV on, their DS or iPod in the background, people talking, the chickens squawking, boots dragging on the floor, doors opening, wind, and the freeway and come days end I'm just DONE.  I came home tonight and had the kids go downstairs so I could read after doing the dishes. I can still hear their TV and them fighting but I am trying to handle it.  Then the dog started itching.  Right by my ear.  I flipped out.  I got up and gave him Benadryl and sat back down to enjoy the peace.  That is when the damn dog went to find his chew bone.  He found his bone and then laid two feet away from me gnawing and chewing and gnawing and chewing for a good ten minutes.  The sound of a dog chewing on a bone, or licking totally pushes every last button.  I couldn't handle it.  I texted my husband telling him the sound of the dog chewing on his bone was going to actually move me to tears.  My ears started ringing and I could feel actual pain in them.  I finally got up and took away his bone for a while.  I'm sitting here now hyper aware of every little sound with my ears still hurting, my brain tense, my jaw clenched hard and my whole being just rigid in a tense little ball of sound.  

I hate this.

I wish there was a medication for this.  Or some sort of relief.

I wish I couldn't hear everything.

But I can.

It's hard.

Does this happen to anyone else?