Well that'll screw them up.

Today the kids had no school for election day.

WHY DON'T WE DO THIS IN PENNSYLVANIA?!?!?!

I grew up getting off for the first day of deer hunting season, but not election day. How does that make sense? I guess a redneck is as a redneck does...

Since they had no school, T let them stay up last night. I'm not sure what the logic is behind this. Parents, you've all uttered the phrase, "Well they don't have to get up so..." Please, explain this to me.

I know they don't HAVE to get up, but we both know they will. And we also know that without a proper night's sleep they are going to be absolute monsters. Do you like to torture yourself? Do you value your child's teachers' sanity more than your own? Please, I just want to understand. I don't care if it's Friday or a holiday or a snow day or the summer. Your kids won't know there is a "stay up late" option if you don't plague the your household and the rest of the world with it.

Anyway, she let them stay up. And don't you judge her because you know you've done it too.

And this morning they were up at six.

And I wasn't.

So, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA T. Haha.

When I did get up around school time the house was already full of tantrums and whining and the dog hadn't been let out and if he could cross his legs he would have.

I let Willie out and promptly forgot about him, as T, who was supposed to be suffering all day at home with me, came down the stairs with bad news.

"I have bad news." She said. "I have to go in to work for training."

I don't ask a lot of questions about what she does or trains for. She's in real estate and that's as much as I care to know. But she had to go, so that was that.

I would have all three beasts -- I mean, kids. All day.

"Go somewhere. Go to the library." She told me sympathetically as she ran out the door to childless bliss.

Ok. I collected the emergency fund from the "draw" in the kitchen and called a cab.

The kids love riding in a cab and they have a special song that they sing to our drivers whenever we go out in one. Today they sang and our utterly personality-less cabby grunted from up front.

We got to the library a little before ten and spent as much time there as the kids could handle. There are computers the big two can play on and a Lego table so the baby can feel like he is destroying something without actually doing so. Of course, we read books and there's also a nice little yard in the back with giant animal statues the kids can climb on and a nice stone seat overlooking the creek that runs behind the building.

The baby took his nap in his stroller after throwing a tantrum about...something. I don't even try to find out anymore. I just put him to sleep. He's such a grump lately.

While he was asleep I went to sit on a couch just outside the play area and still well within the confines of the children's room. I was lost in the depths of Zimbabwe when I heard R calling to me. I cursed the gods of Murphy's Law (if you want to get a child's attention, sit down and look comfortable) and looked up. She was running over to me with a look of panic on her face.

When she reached me she looked as if she was unsure as to whether or not she should deliver her news. She likes a good opportunity to tattle but I think she realized that what she was about to tell me might change the course of the afternoon, nay, our very lives.

"J hit somebody!" She finally spilled the beans.

"Oh reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally?" I said in a voice only dogs could hear.

I'm not normally one to freak out about kids fighting other kids, but here in Great Neck where kids are all "children" and women can be a little uppity I tend to be a bit stricter with my minions. And J has been hitting nonstop for three days now. He had been thoroughly warned before we left the house this morning.

And usually punishment when we are out is getting strapped into the stroller for a timeout, but Baby I was sound asleep in the single stroller I brought along. Of course. Because I normally have a double with me but it doesn't fit in the cab.

I tried to find the precious child my runt had struck but the play area was jam packed with moms and nannies alike trying to fill up the day off from school. In the chaos of the zoo, R couldn't point him out. I took J back to my little couch haven and gave him his timeout there.

He didn't seem all that concerned.

Later, when we had gone outside and then run back in for a potty break and then gone back out and then gone back in again, we were cleaning up the part of the mess we were responsible for and getting ready to head back outside for good. R was right there helping me but I lost track of J for a moment or two and when he registered again on my radar he was having a yelling match with a little boy who had climbed onto a book shelf. The baboon child was standing halfway up a shelf and hurling insults back down at my little J.

Now, J is very sweet tempered and usually very patient. For instance, one day T was smothering him with love on the couch. When the same is done to R she screams, "GET OFF ME! YOU'RE KILLING ME!" But when done to J he simply said, "I love you Mommy, but you're squishing me."

His recent hitting habit is usually reserved for his little brother, who has been increasingly annoying lately. J rarely fights with R unless she starts it.

So I was curious as to how this boy-war had gotten started.

From up on the book shelf the demon child yelled again.

"Well, I'm stronger than you!"

"No, I'm stronger than you!" J said defiantly. He was several inches shorter than his opponent, had they been on even ground, and he probably weighed half as much. But he was angry and unintimidated.

I tried to distract him and get him to follow me, as we were leaving, but he had to finish what was started.

"I'm stronger and I'm bigger!" And then I grabbed him and hauled him out of the children's room before the little punkface hoodlum could retaliate, thereby giving my little punkface the last word.

They didn't sing on the ride home.

Once home, around 2pm, I started some spaghetti sauce for dinner and changed the baby's third poop of the day. A while later T called with exactly 40 minutes to spare before she had to leave for the city. She picked us up and we met up with her sister at a playground.

By the time we got home from there all three kids were EXHAUSTED, bratty and covered in sand. I threw them into the tub and explained how the rest of the night would go. There was going to be no more tantrums (Baby I), no more hitting (J!) and no more whining (R -- before my head explodes). Everyone was going to eat their dinners, all of it. Every bite. Without any problems. And then, they were all going to sit like angels and watch Finding Nemo. That was the deal.

R asked if we could modify it and eat in the playroom with the movie, which I normally object to, but I didn't expect them to last long enough to do one thing after the other, so to appease them and keep my head, I consented.

We set up dinner at the playroom table and I put on the movie, which they were already mostly through.

They started off golden.

Halfway through, J lost steam and I had to start feeding him. A little bit after that, the baby just started to be a jerk and I had to force feed him while he laughed spaghetti back into my face. He thinks he's SOOOOO funny.

J finally stopped eating altogether and I told him fine, but he wasn't getting another chance or dessert. He agreed and I cleaned up and everyone pretended to watch the movie for a few more minutes.

Then.

It started.

The baby crying about goodness knows what, R started a fight and J started doing every naughty and annoying thing he could think of, from hitting me with a giant plastic crayon to jumping all over the furniture.

They were tired.

I was tired.

I gave J his warning, one more naughty and he was going to bed. It was 6:15.

Ten seconds later he was jumping all over things again and I told him it was bedtime for him. R started in on one of her favorite ways to get in trouble: telling J to keep doing whatever it is he's getting in trouble for.

She's been doing it off and on since I got here, but the last few days it has been constant. She grins while whispering at him to keep being bad, keep spitting, keep ignoring Kimmy. I gave her a warning.

Five seconds later she did it again. I promised her bed as soon as J was asleep, and we both knew he would be asleep in minutes.

She stood in the playroom crying at the top of her lungs until I had J washed and brushed and in bed.

When she came upstairs we talked about how completely sick I was of her telling J to be bad. She apologized, promised to stop and ten minutes later she was asleep too. The baby was all that was left.

I gave him his milk and put him to bed.

And then I got to watch Jeopardy! for the first time in a very long time with no kids yelling all around me. It was glorious. And the kids were all asleep so early that they very well could get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow but you know what?

I'M OFF TOMORROW!

Snobby nanny is going to meet her sisters in the city!

GOOD LUCK AT HOME T!