Can I? Huh? Huh? Can I?

I got up early this Sunday and marveled at the stillness of my house. Husband had an early game of sand soccer at the beach and kids were sacked out, exhausted from our busy Saturday.  I thought about going back to sleep, spending the morning in bed, but then I thought about that huge, luscious Sunday paper—crossword puzzles (not one, but two) and Sudoku  (not the easy one’s that appear in the paper Monday through Saturday that I can do with my eyes shut, but the challenging one) and Cryptograms. I thought about the ads, slick pages full of stuff I wanted to buy. I would save the Target ad for last, like dessert.

I slid out of bed, tiptoed down the stairs, poured a cup of coffee, quietly opened the front door, and retrieved the paper. I sat at the kitchen table and readied myself for some quality, uninterrupted newspaper time. As soon as I slid the paper out of the plastic sleeve, six little feet clomped down the stairs and demanded food, drink, and entertainment.

After the tenth request to play the wii, I had a moment of panic. Husband and I don’t allow video games at all for First Son during the school year and very little for Second Son. But they are both allowed to play during summer vacation and it’s starting next week. I cannot listen to “Can I play the wii?” ten thousand times a day for three months. I cannot! So, instead of reading the paper and doing puzzles, I opened up Excel and made these flyers for First and Second Son because the newspaper keeps and sanity does not.

They can play the wii twice a day for forty-five minutes, but first they have to tear off the little forty-five minute tag on that day of the week and give it to me so that I can set the timer. They can’t play wii without tearing off that tag. And once their two tags are gone for that day, they are done playing wii, no argument (yeah, right!), no exceptions. I know—ingenious!  

I made First Son’s tags yellow because he is a huge Steelers fan (Ugh! Gross!) and Second Son’s tags red because for some odd reason that I don’t recall, he is a huge Arizona Cardinals fan. Hopefully, this will be a small step towards making my summer more peaceful. If someone has an idea on how to make them stop saying, “I’m bored,” or “I’m hungry” ten thousand times a day, I’m all ears!