Aaargh! Today was a bad mommy day at our house. I try so hard to be patient, but after so many nights of poor sleep last week when I was sick along with such a busy weekend, I really lost it this morning. I may have mentioned before that the one thing I really have in common with Marmee from Little Women is an ongoing struggle to control my temper. My girls are, overall, really wonderful, helpful kids, but they have a definite problem getting through their morning routine in time to do anything else before lunch. Since that's prime school time, this is a problem. They do dawdle over breakfast, getting dressed, etc, but it's the cleaning up their toys and making the beds upstairs that gets to be the real problem.

Today they were playing instead of cleaning, as usual. I called them down to talk about the problem calmly, explaining that I simply cannot clean up after five kids by myself and that I cannot go up there and help them because I need to take care of the twins. I sent them back up with a 15 minute time limit to get done. After about that long, I could hear them playing again and that's when I lost it. I started screaming at them and went up to start throwing toys away. The babies were crying cause I scared them. The girls were crying because I was screaming and because I was going to throw toys away. I gave them one more chance, and they cried the whole time they cleaned.

When they came down, we all folded laundry together while I talked to them. "Did you learn anything today," I asked.

Silence.

"I learned something."

More silence.

"I learned that if I want you to do something, I should scream and throw toys away. Is that what you wanted me to learn?"

"That's the opposite of what I want you to learn," says E. "I never want you to do that."

Ok, so the rest of the day I feel guilty like crazy, but the fact is, I don't quite know what to do about this. They have too many toys, but they are emotionally attached to everything and I can't get them to give things up. I put things in the attic, and that helps, but I can't keep every toy they own. I used to do a rotation, but I can't keep up with something like that right now. I need things to be simple and easy. I realize it would work better if I went up and worked with them, but I have two nine month olds to take care of as well, and every minute that they are both asleep I spend doing other household tasks. Is it really too much to expect three kids ages 9, 7 and 4 to pick up their own toys and make their own beds without someone hanging over them? I don't think so! I really should just make them get rid of things, but I have trouble following through when they cry about it.

Well, time to let go of today's load of mommy guilt and try to get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow will bring some inspiration to the situation. If not...well, life will go on and this too shall pass and all those great cliches that never make me feel any better.