It's a Wilson thing: Arsenic Hour

So now to explain the title. It is arsenic hour at the Wilson house. Let me see if I can make you understand what aresenic hour is like and why we call it that. Arsenic hour is not necessarily a literal hour, in fact it may last up to three or four. It is usually from the time we get home from school until the time we send them to bed. Imagine five kids probably mostly cooped up during the day all getting home at once. Okay some of them have been home and some of them have been in school and they are happy to see each other. They are hyper, and hungry and have to do homework and chores. Nobody is listening to a thing I am saying and I am getting cranky. I am trying to cook dinner, help them with homework, take care of a screaming hungry baby, Bela hanging on my leg asking for a snack and the phone is always ringing.

I will give an example. Tonight while I was on the phone the baby spilled juice. I was trying to get dinner ready without her touching the stove so I asked Brittany to clean it up. (She was the only one with homework done). She didn't bother.

Meanwhile I am trying to tell the lady on the phone that I don't need to refinance my mortgage because I don't own my home, I live in government housing. She won't take no for an answer, baby slips on juice she's screaming, Kassie and Gabby come running into the kitchen to tattle on each other, both crying and they both slip on the juice. Lady still on the phone, I yell at Brittany for not cleaning up the juice, she comes stomping in to the kitchen just in time to slip in the juice too (lesson learned). Lady still on the phone, I holler at all of them to get out of the kitchen, pick up the screaming baby drop the phone and Danijela proceeds to vomit all over me. Sausage now boiling over, I turn off the stove hand off screaming baby to Gabby, holler at Brittany to clean up the offending juice, pick up the telephone and hang up and run upstairs to change.

In the meantime I forgot about the fries in the oven which, by the time I got back downstairs were pretty black. Luckily I had more and started over with them. While I was doing that, Bela decided she was going to dump all the crayons in the living room. Danijela, cleaned up by Gabby (who was supposed to be doing homework, that she still didn't do), got ahold of a marker and colored all over some of the illustrations from a children's book I wrote, which, by the way should have been in the filing cabinet (I have no idea who got those out). Damage is done I threw away the pictures, check on new batch of fries, they are almost done so I sit down to chat with a friend on MSN. Gabby and Kassie doing homework, Brittany putting away school books Bela and Danijela safely coloring on the floor beside me. And that is only the first hour, wait till after dinner!

6 Comments

See, there is too much mess and screaming with just my one. And you kept popping them out :)! Well, more power to ya, don't know how you do it.

Posted by: Kira | 06/10/2004 at 01:24 PM

I can so relate to this, especially at bedtime when all they want to do is play/fight/muck up. The two year old tore up a library book last night also so if I cant fix it (highly unlikely) then I will have to replace/buy it. I think I might take mine to the beach to wear them out today, if it is warm enough.

Posted by: Judith | 06/10/2004 at 06:17 PM

Yeah, I am not sure 5 kids are for me LOL. What chaos!! I grew up with 5 brothers and sisters, and remember this scene all too well. It's hectic, but what I am used to. Too funny about the lady trying to get you to refinance. We just moved into a new home and have already been harrassed 8x by people asking us to refinance. Not only that they offer us a worst intrest rate then what we have, it's kind of funny.
Take care!

Posted by: Rachael | 06/10/2004 at 06:51 PM