It's a HAPPY Meal Kid, Be HAPPY!

Last night I heard those words. They came from me, not surprisingly. There's always a story to go with it...

It all started with E telling one of his brothers to "shut up". I had already told him ninety nine times not to say that again. So, when he said it for the 100th time, I sprung into action. (yes, I know I should have done that after the 2nd time)

I blurted out to him "You're GROUNDED"! From what, I still wasn't sure. I was ready to even ground him from eating. He immediately blasted back with "I am NOT grounded" and then came the throwing around of inanimate objects and total chaos ensued. (as usual) He was so upset and so angry that he refused to get ready to go to his soccer game. He flung his attitude and his cleats all over the place. I flung a shoe at him. ( it was only a baby shoe ) He shot up to his room and started throwing his stuff down the staircase....a book, a clock...you know, stuff. I got a few verbal lashings with " I HATE you Mom" too. In my anger, um, angst, I flew up the stairs, ran over to him to give him a piece of my mind, and was stopped in my tracks. A shelf from the bookcase he was perched atop, fell and landed on the tops of both of my feet. I swear I saw stars... It ended there. I think he was so shocked from what happened, that he feared for his life. I knew that it wasn't his fault the shelf fell on my feet, but he didn't!

Anyhow, after much flailing and wailing, (from the kid) he finally managed to get on his soccer gear to go to his much protested game. We drive all the way across town with a van load of kids and guess what? No game. I had forgotten that this was the week that there was only one game. On Tuesday. We didn't discover this until we trekked all the way down to the far left side of the soccer field because we saw his teams' bright yellow shirts. Turns out the team we headed towards was a team of girls in bright yellow shirts. All in all, the kid got what he wanted...not to play soccer!

By now, there's the question about the Happy Meal comment, I'm sure... I'll try to make it short. We had $20 bucks from an insurance refund, so we decided to take the kids out to eat. They wanted pizza. We headed to a new place called NYPD Pizza... it was a no go. There was only about 12 seats in the whole joint and there were only 4 not already occupied. There are 7 of us...you do the math. We leave, amidst a flurry of protests from our little people. As we are driving I told the kids to decide between a Happy Meal or getting a pizza to take home and eat there. Well, since things are never easy with this crowd, 4 of the kids wanted a Happy Meal and 1 wanted pizza. We ended up going home. With nothing. Both R and I were ready to jump out of the van it was so loud in there. My ears are still ringing. And the kids had Kix cereal for dinner.