Evening Chaos

I was quite wrong. My day wasn't chaos today, but instead my evening was chaos. The morning went smoothly with the cleaning lady here (she is like free babysitting, as Claire follows her around and talks her ear off the whole three hours), and then I got the kids to McDonald's for lunch (hey, it's a break from the norm). The new babysitter arrived and she did a fantastic job of keeping Claire outside and playing while I got loads of work done today. And the babies both slept pretty much the whole day - definitely odd, actually, so I assume it's a growth spurt of some sort.

The only bad moment was when the new babysitter arrived and Claire decided to throw a tantrum because she wasn't getting attention during the 'meet the babysitter/adult conversation' time. I was mortified AND angry with the kid. And I'm starting to wonder if I have some major behavior issues on my hands. She's nearing 4 now, so shouldn't she be mellowing?

The evening turned out to be our bad time. Claire wouldn't cooperate during dinner because her friend and neighbor was playing in our (shared) backyard area, so she caused a big scene. At the same time, the strangely tired babies started crying in their high chairs and both went into nighttime meltdown mode. We allowed Claire to play with the neighbor, but then they decided to invade our home and cause more chaos as Kyle and I worked to get the twins to sleep.

I left the house at 8:30pm for another walk and was utterly thrilled to get the break and the workout (my friend even made me run stairs, which is very mind clearing). I'm dreading, dreading, tomorrow. It's the babies' 9-month appointment, and I just realized it's scheduled for 2pm when the babies should be on nap #2 for the day. So over-tired babies, a doctor's office, wait time, and shots ... the perfect storm for a stressful and disastrous afternoon. I've demanded that Kyle take Claire to work for a couple hours so I don't have her to deal with during the appointment.

I can only hope the shots will make the babies tired, and not cranky. Wishful thinking I'm sure.