Notes

The following story is a recipe for feeling like utter dog shit.

Last night I  made dinner for Ike and Harry with a sad Levi on my hip. Rachel was trying to catch a quick nap before her overnight. I value her rest nearly as much as she does, so when she's sleeping I get uptight about keeping a quiet house. I set the kids up with paper and pens, hoping to stave off a cage match. All was going well until I heard a scream and then Harry was crying.

Turns out, Harry had written Isaac a note that said, "Isaac smell like a woman," or something just as pithy and poorly edited. Isaac read it, got angry and slugged Harry. All three of Ike's actions I was proud of. Harry whined about getting hit, I told him he had it coming, he said he insulted Ike because he doesn't like when Ike hits him, I said Ike hit him because he insulted him not the other way around, he said Ike always hits him (which is true), Ike denied this and started to cry, the discussion rapidly degenerated into a chicken and the egg thing, the pasta timer went off and, stressed as I was about trying to keep things quiet to begin with, I yelled for everyone to shut up. Then Levi cried.

Things settled down, but I wanted Harry to know that I was angry. There's nothing wrong with that in my book. He was acting like a jerk and one way to prevent him from not becoming a full time jerk is to let him know that when he acts like one it pisses me off for more than a few seconds. This upset him, but hey, we don't learn from the shit that doesn't upset us.

Ultimately the night mellowed. Rach went to work. All the boys went to sleep without incident. All was well. Cut to two in the morning when Ike crawls into myt bed. Followed by Harry. Followed by Levi waking up. Everyone was up for awhile. We all got back to sleep though. Until 5:30. Then it started all over.

I managed to sleep another hour when Rach came home at 6:00 (poor girl, I love her so), but it's not difficult to imagine that I woke with frayed nerves. Rach had fallen asleep, so again, I wanted a quiet house. Harry wasn't cooperating in this endeavor so he had the top spot on my shit list. While making his breakfast and lunch, unbeknownst to me, he started with the notes again. I discovered this when I heard Ike scream, start to cry and try to tear the notebook from Harry's hands.

I said in my scariest quiet voice, "Harry Sey, when are you going to understand that you're the older brother?! You need to help me, not make things harder and when you provoke Ike, I want him to slug you!" Harry had this jerky grin on his face, like "I know, but it's funny!" He tried to show me the note. I said, "Why would I want to see it!? I'm sick of you insulting him! You can write, you can read, and you use it to hurt his feelings!" (With great power comes great responsibility and all that). He kept smiling and I wanted to knock the dimples off his little face. He said, "Just look!" And I said "I don't ever want to see one of your stupid notes again! Go and eat your breakfast!" "FINE!" He said, with wounded, teary eyes, and went to the table to eat his Rice Krispies. As far as I was concerned he should be sad. He hadn't learned the simple lesson I apparently did such a shitty job of teaching him the very night before.

Ike wandered over and looked at the pad. Then he read the note: "Isaac is the best brother ever."

The End.