Battle Plan

Tonight, my kids tried to stage a coup. They were almost successful. My defenses were down and I was out-numbered. We went to my brother's house for a family dinner. There were 25 people running around their house. Ok, there were 23 well behaved guests and my 2 children. Sara spent the night following her teenaged cousins around. Christian chased everyone around or tried to play pool. His hand-eye coordination isn't quite up to snuff. Maybe when he can see over the pool table he will improve. After several hours of eating and playing, I decided that it was time to call it a night. It was 2.5 hours after their bedtime. Seemed reasonable to me. Here is how our departure went- several warning to clean up toys and gather belongings were ignored. Several feeble attempts at saying goodbye later, I had rallied the kids. I thought. Suddenly I realize Christian is only wearing one sock. I hunt down the missing sock. Now I have to hunt down the missing boy. I find him under the pool table. We finally make it to the front door. We gather up our multiple bags of belongings. I think we are ready to get in the car. Wrong. Neither child can find their coat. Coat hunt ensues. At this point, I am ready to just buy them new coats in the morning. Coats found. Next comes the great shoe debacle. Sara gets one shoe on then decides everyone needs one more goodbye hug and kiss. Now Christian is insisting he can put in his own shows. Sidebar- he can't. After several agonizing attempts, he admits defeat and lets me put them on. I issue this order - get your bags and get in your seats. Apparently it came out in Parseltongue because they just stared at me blankly and tried to go back to the party. We finally get in the car and head back to the hotel. Suddenly, they have lost their energy and are whining about how tired they are. They BOTH want me to carry them all the way up to our room. And all their stuff. Then Sara came up with what she thought was a brilliant solution. She wanted me to put them and their stuff on a luggage cart and push them to our room. Channeling my inner mean mommy, I made them walk to the elevator and to our room. Once in the room, they get a second wind and chase each other around the hotel room. I issue some dire threats and they rediscover how exhausted they are. Sara makes her hotel nest while I put Christian to bed. Her hotel nest is different from her home nest. It's an intricate set up of 6 strategically placed pillows. It literally forms a nest and she climbs in the middle. Heaven help housekeeping if they disturb her nest. She leaves them notes. And as all things involving Sara, they obey her. Now if I could just get her to obey me life would be good.