Genuine Saturday.

Last night we were out at E's mother's house for Shabbat dinner until 11 o'clock. The kids were throwing tantrums before we left, while we were there and then topped out with the mother of all tantrums as we packed up to come back.

In the months I've been offline R has developed an indecisive streak. She spends a good twenty minutes choosing her breakfast every morning and then eats the same thing every day. But by far the worst tantrum arena is her closet when it's time to dress for anything.

She is adamantly opposed to layering her clothes and since it has been very chilly in the mornings and then mildly warm and gloriously sunny in the afternoons this poses a problem.

For school she is more agreeable but when we have places to go in the evening her inability to put a matching outfit together which is approved by her mother and that R herself feels comfortable in quickly escalades into an all out screaming match.

The first time it happened E was home. He simply went into the room, put clothes on R and said, "Keep them on or you won't come." She continued to scream for a good fifteen minutes until they walked out the door, but she was dressed.

The next time took longer. E's presence had no influence on her and it wasn't until T spanked her and told her she wasn't coming that she hurried into her outfit and promised to do as told, all the while hiccupping and breathing really hard from crying for thirty minutes.

Last night was the third and last time any of us are letting her out of the house after a tantrum like that. She was {this} close to getting left behind last night and the only reason she didn't was because I was hungry and no one here has been shopping in a really long time.

Before dinner we were dressing to go to a football game. R has a brand new winter coat that she and T picked out and agreed was perfect. When it came time to put it on R started crying. At the football game she vowed she wasn't going to put the coat on so I told T to go ahead with the two boys (E wasn't with us) and I would get her to come. I waited five minutes, said, "Ok, put it on or I'm leaving." When she said no I turned to go and she panicked and put it on.

We went home and hung out for a bit before getting dressed for dinner. The boys and I were ready before R even agreed to go upstairs and look at her clothes. When she finally did she began right away with, "I don't know what to wear!" The tears came shortly after. I told her to stop crying or I wouldn't help her. She didn't. So I left her in T's frustrated hands. T told her to pick something and get it on. She gave her options and ideas. More tears came. T left the room. For over an hour R sat in her room in her birthday suit, screaming that she hated everything she owned. It finally got to the point where T screamed back and that rarely happens. R got a spanking and the threat of not going was put on the table.

Twice R shrieked that she was going to listen and she would get dressed. Twice she started up again after making that promise. T left her in her room with the promise that if she didn't come out in a proper outfit when it was time to go then she would be staying behind.

She put on her outfit and came.

R has been throwing tantrums about other things lately too. Overall her behavior has had a marked change since the start of the school year. When I came home from a day off to a house that looked like a whirlwind had flown through it T was sitting in the kitchen looking tired.

"She's a brat." She told me and I laughed. She IS a brat. But she's actually getting better. The tantrums, I believe, are her last defense against Nanny Rule. And when no one else is home, they are very shortlived little tantrums.

This morning the kids asked if they could play outside. It was still cold at that point so I told them yes, if they wore a sweatshirt and a jacket. The deal is that when the sun gets warm the jackets can come off. J obliged and was outside in no time. The baby, of course, couldn't care less what he's wearing as long as he's outside. He has become very fond of shoes though.

R immediately started crying about having to wear a jacket.

"Ok," I said in a normal, calm speaking voice, which I am positive is key in getting your point across to kids this age. "I'm not going to argue with you. I told you what you need to wear. We're all ready. We're going outside. When you put on what I said you can come out. If I see you out there without what you need, you will be in trouble." And I left.

She argued from the doorway for a bit but when no one engaged she went upstairs and got dressed.

At lunch time T followed my advice and did not engage. We had a pasta picnic on the front lawn and when R started crying and threw her fork down and complained that her mac wasn't cheesy enough T simply said, "Ok, but I'm not making anything else and you won't get dessert." (We dessert after lunch because it has been proven that J can't handle sweets after dinner and be expected to fall asleep anywhere near bedtime.)

And R ate every bite.

In between tantrums, today was a very relaxing day. I made pancakes around 9 and we all trailed the kids outside to ride bikes and sleep on the lawn. Baby I has taken an interest in J's t-ball set and spent the morning hitting balls three inches from the T. I spread out my beach blanket and napped on it. When I sat up T was napping on it too and between us was Willie as happy as I've ever seen him.

E took the kids for a bike ride around the block and T followed to video tape so I put the baby down for a nap and did some minimal work. There was a lot more sitting around pretty much right up until dinner time.

I heated leftovers while E and T got dressed to go out. While the kids ate dinner I told them stories. This is our latest past time. They name a Disney character and I tell the story in as much detail as possible so that when we rent the movies and they watch them for the first time, R won't be scared.

She's a chicken like my little Eva! I MISS LITTLE EVA!!!

Anyway, so I told them Cars, Sleeping Beauty and almost started Snow White before we got side-tracked. R and J have become impressed also with my stories of the new wave of critters living in my basement.

Since the cess pool trap has become filled with stagnant, sulfur-smelling water, all the spiders who usually live in the trap ran out of it in hope of survival. Silly spiders. They all died in the Second All Natural Pesticide War of 2011.

I haven't seen any silverfish to speak of, and still none on my side of the basement. One night I woke up in the dead of the night and looked at the wall above my bed. It was one of those weird moments where you can't explain why you knew to wake up, but I did and there was a very, very faint looking spideresque shape running up the wall. It was gone before I could turn on a better light.

I went back to sleep, which is a sign that I am maturing. Before Africa, I never went back to sleep after a spider-sighting.

Several nights later I encountered another spider of the same species. They're so thin they're barely visible and they are FAST. They remind me of daddy long legs, and so I am not particularely bothered by them. But I did spray my side of the basement again after the cess pool incident anyway, so I haven't seen those in a while either.

The newest developement in Critter Kingdom is the crickets.

The first one I spotted was near the cess pool. I left him alone.

The second one, which I'm pretty sure is also the third one, was on the wall beneath my window. I let him wander for a while, hoping he would have the sense to GO AWAY before I settled down for bed. He didn't, and then he started singing, and so I had to throw a shoe at him. I HAD TO.

I thought I killed him and just couldn't find the body.

But the next night Number 3 was on the same wall, on the other side of the window. He crawled around frantically when I entered the room and turned on the lights. I told him I was going to take a shower and if he was still there when I came back we would have a problem.

He was very cleverly out of sight when I returned.

Unforturnately, when he started singing, I had no idea where to throw my shoes.

I told R about Jiminy Cricket living in the basement and she asked me if she could get up in the middle of the night some time and come meet him.

I thought about it for all of one second, flashing back to every wild outburst she's had in the last 48 hours, calculating just how much sleep she had been lacking in each scenario...

And told her no.