Messy Week

It's been a messy week here in the Knapp household. The boys' normally virtuous behavior turned extremely challenging earlier this week. Only it took me until near the end of the week to realize what was going on. I kept thinking, Gee, it seems like I have so little patience! What's wrong with me? Until one of my children bit the other, actually drawing blood. Twice. That was the wake-up call that made it hit me: it's them, not me! Realizing that they were going through a normal phase of challenging behavior was actually a relief to me, because it meant that it was something we could work through and would eventually have an end. It doesn't help that they both seem to be going through a growth spurt, and so are nearly perpetually hungry and tired, which is enough to make any adult extremely irritable.

For the first time in his life, Ben fell asleep on the floor, after a round of discipline for applying his teeth to his brother. He slept for an hour this way, until I moved him to the couch, where he slept another half hour. This was at 10am!

The boys were better behaved by Thursday afternoon and Friday, so we rolled up our sleeves and tackled some important projects: cookie-decorating and snowflake-making.  Which was messy. Good thing we have hardwood floors and a good vacuum. 


The cookies we decorated were the kind found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store in the shape of a log, that you just slice and bake. I normally opt for making cookies from scratch because they taste so much better, but this was an emergency, and a matter of life-and-death (as far as small children are concerned). I spent all Thursday morning mixing, kneading, refrigerating, rolling, cutting, and baking sugar cookies. Only to find out that I made a fatal mistake that resulted in over-buttery yucky cookies. Pillsbury came to my rescue Thursday afternoon and made my children ecstatic to have a sugary canvas on which to smear their frosting, sprinkles, and candies.

Can you tell these were decorated by a 2- and 4-year old? 

We made paper snowflakes on Friday morning. The boys were happy to have me cut out their snowflakes and then they went to work gluing and sprinkling glitter. Now I can be satisfied that we got all the messes out of the way and can enjoy the week before Christmas. Hopefully.