My mood today was mostly one of frustration and discouragement. It's partly just going through the cycle of emotions. Can't be happy and positive all of the time, now can we? I was also trying to clean a little, and it seemed that as soon as I cleaned up one thing the kids made up for it in another area. That's part of life with the kids at home, though.

It rained much of the day but cleared up and turned sunny midafternoon. We went to McDonald's for supper so the kids could run around the playland, which is something they haven't done in a very long time. We were sitting by this family with four (?) kids, and the mother had such a loud voice. She also talked constantly, mostly chastising her kids for every thing that happened. At one point, Cole and one of her boys collided on the slide, and she told her son, "See, that's what you get for trying to go up the slide!" Grr! That is one of my parenting pet peeves - parents pulling the "I told you so" card on their children. How must that make a child feel to get physically hurt and, rather than comforting words from the parent, hear the parent trying to point out the "lesson" learned.

Tomorrow Cole's going in for a check up. He hasn't even had an appointment with our pediatrician for basically two years since his last check up. Then Accalia's starting up at the art studio again. She's pretty excited about that.