Re-entry Sucks

Do you remember the scene in The Right Stuff where Gus Grissom re-enters Earth's atmosphere in the Mercury capsule?  He's shaking and rocking and bouncing and then crashes into the ocean.  He's supposed to wait for the retrieval team to secure the capsule before blowing the hatch.  Somehow the hatch blows early, and the very expensive piece of space hardware becomes flotsam.  The poor astronaut spends the rest of his life trying to convince the world that he didn't "screw the pooch" . . . the hatch "just blew."  

 

That's how I'm feeling right now.  

My kids and I always find "re-entry," the return from a pajama party sleepover, a challenge.  There's always a potty training regression.  There's always a day of short tempers and fatigue.  I usually salvage it by not too many outside activities and a movie or two.  

This week, my kids stayed on their first 2-night sleepover, and boy has it kicked our butts!  Mind you, included in their sleepover was the purchase of a bunk bed, new bedding, pajamas, and underwear PLUS a very fun trip to Boston to tour the aquarium AND take a duck boat ride.  Add the three dogs fighting and tearing Grammy and Pop's house apart, and you have an exciting couple of days!

The day I brought them home was unpredictably bad.  The 45-minute ride home was spent with my kids screaming at each other, hitting each other, and throwing things at one another.  (Once in a while I expect this.  This was the first time it lasted the WHOLE ride!) 

I sang lullabies.  It was not for their benefit.  

We had the potty debacle.  

I pulled out the movies.   

We survived day 1 of re-entry.  

I expected today to be a little better, but we had a busy day planned.  It started at 8 with an oil change, usually pretty fun.  Today, however, instead of playing with the toys, the kids fought over them.  Loudly.  Until I took them away and read from Highlights instead.  They got us out very quickly!

Then we needed to go to Benny's for new tires.  (Four, they said, because my car is all-wheel drive, even though one is practically new.)  Ok.  Except, they only have 3 in stock.  (Yippee!  I don't have to purchase the fourth after all!)  All the money I just earned in NH went to lube and shoe Cebu.  Oh well.  

While we wait for the tires, we shop for a present for my nephew's birthday party on Sunday.  Not good.  Kids want to touch everything, drop 5 boxes of Lego sets on the floor, fight over what to get him, and try to coerce me into buying something for my niece whose birthday is about 6 months away.  Joy.  

We purchase the gift.  The car still isn't done.  We wander around the store until the squabbling and touching does me in.  I buy Reese's Peanut Butter Cups which we consume outside (it's about 90 degrees) in the display chairs.  

I wipe up chocolate fingers with a tissue in my purse.  (Backpack with supplies?  In car, of course.)

I will skip ahead to the point where I am sitting in a chair in the sun wrapped around both of my screaming, kicking children being told by an old lady that it's too hot to have my kids outside, they should be in the air conditioning, and by no means should I take them to the beach.  (BEACH???  Are you crazy, Lady?  These kids are getting put to bed as soon as I can find wheels to get them there!  I may steal a car at this point!)  

I finally lost it.  I grabbed my kids by the hand, stalked up to the first employee I could see and said, "My car is getting new tires.  My kids have pushed me to the brink of insanity.  I need my car now, tires or no tires."  

The poor teenager just looked at me like I was a Martian and said, "Uh, okay."  A few minutes later the car was ready.  

We went to the bank drive-through next door.  Can I say no lollipops today?  

Or naps?  Because instead of sleeping my kids climbed into my daughter's crib and "rested" together, in Ranita's words.  

Best of all, Ranita and I were both supposed to go to counseling tonight while my daughter stayed with my sister-in-law.  

Can we say temper tantrum?  "I want to stay with my cousins!"  Never mind they'll be at a party together in a few days.  So I left them both and went myself.  

It was a vent session!  

I'm not sure why these re-entries are so difficult.  Is it the change in routine?  The extra energy Grammy and Pop exude?  A slight degree of separation anxiety?  Punishment for Mommy having a life without them?  A need to reestablish closeness with Mommy and being uncertain how to do it?  Fatigue?  All of the above?  

I don't know.  What I do know is that re-entry is much easier if Mommy has had some rest time.  (A work trip does NOT qualify!)  It also helps if we have a day or two at home . . . if nothing else there's a safe time-out place!  At this stage, it also seems that one night is better than two.  (When I picked him up and put him in the car my son said, "Mommy, you were gone a long time!"  I reminded him he had requested two nights.  He looked at me very solemnly and said, "But I meant one night!")  

Our next re-entry comes in a few weeks, after our first all-family trip to Maine since the divorce.  We'll have one day and then he starts school.  

Lord help us all!