enter the war zone

Yesterday HotMomma and her visiting sister went shopping for a few hours while leaving in my care two toddlers and a seven-year-old. I learned two things from the experience: 1. One toddler can be a bit destructive, but put two together and you have a WMD, 2. Three kids + one dog + a gazillion toys + one television = more noise than the brain can handle, and 3. I'm totally not mentally or physically ready for the impending birth of The Fetus and having two kids. At the same time. All the time.

Apparently Z-Dub and his cousin BS (six months younger) have a love-hate relationship. One moment they're laughing and playing and the next they're fighting. After spending several days together this week, they were swinging more to the hate side yesterday. I was constantly playing referee to fights over everything from snacks to toys to playing with the dog. They both had "that's mine" as their mantras and neither would raise a white flag and let there be peace. Instead they employed their power of swinging as they competed in some vicious rounds of boxing. I was about to give up on stopping it and invite some of the neighbors over some betting action. I could have made some serious cash. While Z-Dub is bigger and packs a mean punch, you can never underestimate the slapping power of little BS. And she's got the mad dog facial expressions to go with it. She's the daughter of a tough U.S. Marine. Don't f*ck with her!

Instead of letting them beat each other senseless I had to play U.N. Secretary and impose some sanctions to quell some of the battles. They included confiscation of certain highly sought toys and frequent timeouts. Actually, Z-Dub got more timeouts, because BS cried uncontrollably if you just told her "no." She's tough, but sensative I guess.

Unfortunately, like with conflicted nations, these sanctions were only temporary fixes as no cease-fire held for longer than a few minutes. Although a full-on war never broke out in the iVegasFamily house, border skirmishes continued throughout the morning hours until they both fell asleep in exhaustion.

During their nap I had to clean up the mess. Shortly after Z-Dub woke, but before BS did, HotMomma and her sister arrived home and I was relieved of my commanding duty. Despite that, by the evening I was exhausted beyond words. As I lay in bed to sleep, I thought to myself, "holy crap, it a couple of months we're going to have two kids." I'm screwed!