Epic Parenting Fail?

Yesterday was, pretty much, downright awful.*  Mollie, who has been sick with croup since Monday, fell asleep for two minutes on the car ride home from my parents and decided that that would be enough napping for one day.  Given how cranky she was for the rest of the evening, I'm gonna say she was wrong.  Yes, the one-minute car nap was in full effect yesterday.

She also decided to put her climbing skills to the test and sit atop our hearth.  *sigh* 



I have never been a huge fan of kids having a cabinet of our kitchen stuff they can get into and play with, probably because our floors have never been all that clean and it just means more dish cleaning for me.  So you can imagine my dismay when one of our beloved childproofing locks broke about a month and a half ago.  Since then, the kids have found the lazy susan area of the kitchen infinitely fascinating, with no exception last night.

Yeah, I am still not sure where all the stuff that once resided in that corner cupboard now is.  So not cool, kiddos!

To top it all off, the little man decided that listening to Mommy was highly overrated, so he basically tuned me out for the rest of the night.  Seriously.  Even if I held his head with both hands and spoke directly at his face like he was some sort of drive thru speaker, he refused to listen or do anything I asked.  Which lead to the epic parenting fail of the night.

Did I mention I was alone with both kids for all of this?  Well, I was, and since Mollie didn't nap and I had actually contemplated taking one myself, I was pretty exhausted on top of the aloneness.  Mollie broke down during dinner and basically wouldn't eat without major effort, but I knew she'd be hungry the minute I let her down and - worse yet - in the middle of the night if I didn't get enough food into her.  So, as my own dinner sat in the toaster oven, I fed her and Baylor their dinners.  Why Baylor?  Because he decided it would be more fun to rock back IN A BARSTOOL than to eat his dinner like he should, resulting in me pulling him over a yard away from the bar and having to feed him every last bite.  I eventually got to eat, I got Mollie to eat most of her dinner, and Baylor ate all but one of his carrots. 

Feeling a small triumph, I let the kids down and sent them off to the living room to play while I did the dishes.  Of course, I didn't just do the dishes; I also had to keep running into the living room to mediate fights, bring Mollie down from high heights, and generally keep the peace.  About five minutes away from being done with the dishes and about twenty minutes before we needed to head up for baths, I asked the kids to start cleaning up the living room.  Mollie, bless her heart, had no clue what I was talking about so she just went about her business.  But Baylor decided to ignore me like he had the rest of the night.  I implored them about twenty times to pick up, even giving specific ideas of what they could do to help, and still no action was taken, no messes unmade.  At the end of my rope I made a snap decision; if he couldn't take care of his toys, then he shouldn't get to play with them ... at all.  I announced this very fact and started piling all the toys into a laundry basket.

I'll admit, I actually told Baylor that we might just have to give his toys to a little boy or girl who would actually appreciate them.  (To an older child who had an understanding of what I was talking about this might have stung, but Baylor didn't seem phased by it at all.) 

And now I am left with the burden of following through.  The basket of toys has been moved to the basement until I can figure out what in the world I am going to do next.  In the meantime, I am left to think of how I am going to parent more effectively.  I know that Baylor is only two-and-a-half, but I believe he has the ability to pick up after himself.  I know that it also means he occasionally won't listen to me, but it just feels like this is becoming more the norm than the exception.  How do I turn this around before my son stops listening to me altogether and starts breaking all the rules?

* I fully admit, yesterday was light years better than most people have it.  We have a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, our health, happiness, and two of the best children you could really ask for.  I know this, which makes me feel even more guilty for griping like I have here.  I do apologize.