Just when things are actually starting to go pretty well, you get smacked in the face with four days of rain. Rain makes my kids crazy, not just "Animal House" crazy though, more like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" crazy. So far today Hammie has been in time out for biting Eleanor, Fraser has been in timeout for choking Hammie, and I have had to answer the question "When will it stop raining??" at least 100 times. I have also had to answer the question "but WHY can't I put duct table in the dishwasher" once, but that question was answered at such a volume that all our neighbors now also understand why we don't put duct tape in the dishwasher. And this is only day 1 of the rain.

This day of hideous, constant, insanity inducing rain is doubly worse since it follows what was actually a really good day yesterday, meaning that (once again) I had gotten my hopes up that we had turned some sort of fighting, biting, poking, screaming, crying corner. You can tell how difficult things have been around here lately by the fact that I am still surprised, shocked even, that I can look back on an entire day and say that yes, we did actually have a pretty good day. In the morning all three kids spent some quality time in the "cat room" (the bedroom that was taken over by our foster cat and her kittens). The kittens are big enough now that they are really playful and not quite as terrified of the kids (the whole cat in the backpack episode seems to have been forgiven, by the cats, not by me.) We spent so much time with them on a beautiful sunny morning that we would normally spend outside because at 10:00 a.m. we had to pack them into their carrier and return them to the shelter so they could be put up for adoption. Obviously I was far more upset about this than any of the kids (except for this morning, when Hammie woke up and asked if he could say good morning to the Mommy cat and baby cats, which he has done every morning since they arrived, and I reminded him that May and the kittens were gone, and he proceeded to sob hysterically on the floor for 5 minutes crying "But I want to see them just one more time!" It was totally heartbreaking except for the fact that he was completely over it 10 minutes later and back to tormenting our cats).

So, after some quality kitten time we packed everyone into the car and drove to Lunenburg to the Pat Brody Shelter for cats (where the cats are currently up for adoption if you are interested!! http://www.catsontheweb.org/) The volunteer, Linda, that took the cats back mentioned that if we ever wanted to foster again it would be very much appreciated. I said of course (of course) thinking next spring it would be fun to do it again, and she then explained that they actually have kittens in need of foster all summer long, and usually another push of kittens in September too. I was surprised (and a little freaked out) that nature doesn't seem to follow the "spring is for babies" approach with cats anymore, but I happily volunteered to take another round of kittens at any time (pending approval of my husband, of course). This put me in a very good mood for the rest of the day, which I think really did help our day go better overall.

We had planned to go strawberry picking after dropping off the cats, but I realized that I forgot to bring the directions. I was all for calling it a day and heading home, but Fraser insisted we should at least TRY to find the strawberry farm. This may sound like a totally reasonable request, except that the farm is in New Hampshire, we were in Massachusetts, and I have absolutely the worst sense of direction ever. So, I figured I would give it the old college try for half and hour or so, Fraser would be satisfied, and we could go home. But, miracle of miracles, we actually found the farm! We had a great time having a picnic lunch (in the back of the minivan) strawberry picking (eating) until around 1, when everyone was out of steam.

When we got back we filled up the baby pools and the water table and the kids had a blast running naked through the yard and leaping into the pools. Eleanor finally went down for a nap around 2:00 and slept for a solid 3 hours, beautiful. Outside, our poor neighbors, a very sweet retired couple who Fraser and Hammie are borderline obsessed with, were out trying to trim their plants, and so were treated to a good 45 minute monologue by both Fraser and Hammie on everything from tractors to strawberries to what time Daddy usually gets home from work. When the husband, Dick, came around onto our yard to fix something on the fence Hammie, completely naked, marched over and said "Dick! What are you doing here? This is OUR property! You aren't supposed to be on our property!" I'm sure these people must wonder what on earth we say to our children, or to each other, that our three year old comes out with that. (For the record I have absolutely no clue where he got that concept from, except maybe that I have repeatedly told our neighbors' dog to get off our property since our dog doesn't care for him, to put it mildly).

We made it almost all the way through the day with no fighting at all, until I told the kids they could watch Cat in the Hat on PBS while I finished making dinner. Apparently the couch is just not big enough for three of them, and although we have 2 chairs in the room that are just as comfy, they seem to much prefer all sitting on the couch and alternately shoving and kicking each other as they vie for space. Thankfully by bedtime they were all so beat we had them all in bed by 8:00 with relatively little "I don't WANT to put on my pajamas, I don't WANT to brush my teeth, I don't WANT to hear a story, no wait, I WANT to hear a story!"

And now it is raining. We have taken out every single toy we own, scrubbed the cat room clean, done laundry, read books, watched Diego (Eleanor has quite a crush on Diego now), and there are still five hours until bedtime. I guess it is time to resort to playing our instruments and singing silly made up songs, like my personal favorite, "Rain rain go away, my kids are making me f-ing crazy today."