Apparently, it's time for my last child to go through the teenage-alien-stage. He is grumpy most of the time. Complains about almost everything from the after taste in food or drinks to the clothes he wears, the clothes "he" chose. He's not obeying the house rules of no eating in the bedrooms. It's always something at this age.
Another house rule is for the kitchen to be clean and closed by 8:00 pm. Yes, that is early. Though I forget, that rule came about through undesireable circumstances. However, should one become hungry after that time, simply clean up your mess. Well, he seems to "refuse" to clean up after himself. Afterall, for some reason, my boys, once they reached early teens, began eating pretty much non-stop.
So, after calling him to clean up his mess on 5 different occasions, I gave him 3000 standards. Yes, I was a bit upset. Keep in mind, I run a daycare. I need to use the kitchen first thing in the morning. Besides, there are no maids in this house! He does the same thing with emptying the trash from the kitchen as well.
Back to the rule of no food in the bedrooms. The other day, I came upstairs and I hear this crinkling sound. I look to my left, down the hall, which leads directly into his room, and I see the dog licking a paper bag. As I approach, I see that it is the bag from the yogurt covered pretzels. This incident is only a few days following the dishes and the trash incidents.
At this time, he is at school which worked out to be a good thing. It allowed me time to cool off. When he got home, I immediately gave him 3000 more standards and placed him on restriction until both standards were completed. His explanation was that the bag was in his pocket when he came upstairs....uh huh, whatever!
Normally, when I put them on restriction, I strip their rooms of any and all electronics...every last one of them. This time, I figured since he had done most of the first standards, it wouldn't take him long to complete the second ones. Therefore, it wouldn't be necessary to take the items from his room. All together that would be 6000 standards. That would be enough of a consequence in itself.
Well, last night, he goest downstairs to fix something to eat at 7:25pm or so. At 7:50pm I call him to come upstairs. I said, "Turn off that t.v." He says, "Ok", which I thought was funny because he knew I knew the t.v. was on. Ok, no big deal. I know he is in his teenage-alien-stage so I don't trip. In fact, I chuckled a bit.
So, tell him, "I want to see your standards." He says, "Mom, I'm still working on them." The other day when I looked at his standards, I told him he is writing too small. If I can't read it, then I don't know what he's writing...literally. So, when he brought them to me, yes, they were way, way too small. Yes, I became angry and tore up the paper. Then I proceeded to yell at him. Realizing how upset I had become, to the point of beathing too hard (this has been going on for a few months now), I called their dad.
Dad handled both of us very well. He's always very calm. We are very opposite. My son was in tears by the time he got off the phone. I'm sure he is fairly frustrated too. Dad had also advised him to call our oldest boy, which is what I had asked him to do in the first place but he didn't want to. While he spoke with his brother, dad took the time to listen to my concerns.
Following our phone conversation, I took a drive, sat by the lake, cried a little from frustration, then drove some more before coming home to bed. Today, I'm feeling a little numb. I'm ok though. My mother would say, when she was still 
alive, let yourself cry, then put a cold towel on your face, take a few deep breathes and start over again.
The new kids came by to visit yesterday. I like them alot. Mom says the she likes my facility because I offer structure. That made me feel really good. I am a very routine person. I think kids so better when they know what's coming next. 
