Rough Day

The last few weeks have gone really smoothly in our little world of babysittingness. We've fallen into a comfortable yet loose routine and started to grow easy with each other. Most days are quiet and relatively uneventful (hence the lack of posting). But Thursday-Thursday was a toughy.
It didn't help that I woke up tired and not so thrilled to spend my day stranded at someone else's house watching their kids and all I wanted to do was clean my own house and sleep. It didn't help that when I got there the Captain was screaming at Mom that he didn't want me there, it didn't help but so it began.
Little sister slept in, which isn't completely unusual and she woke up fairly happy despite her eye being half glued shut by the eye-boogie bug she caught from her older brother and The Captain did calm down once Mom left for work. I put Baby down for a nap and we had a pretty quiet morning. Soon, though, LS started to get grumpy. Since it was her normal nap time I carried her down to her bed. Five minutes later she was climbing back up the stairs, still grumpy. I put her in her bed again, the words of the experts from my parenting magazine repeating in my head ("don't talk to them, don't make a big deal out of it, just repeat the routine and put them back in their bed, soon they'll realize they're not getting the attention they want and go to sleep" or something like that). I think she just settled down when Captain Awesome's movie got over and when I said it wasn't quite time for lunch but almost because his movie was short, he gave me that you-are-my-worst-enemy look and started in on the I-don't-like-you tantrum so I said "go to your room until you calm down and we can talk". Yes. I said this. I was quite proud of my self for not screaming, yelling, or demanding this. So down he goes to the room he and his little sister share, yelling, banging the door, crying, etc. Baby woke up. Little sister climbed back up the stairs.
When he finally decided to calm down he also came upstairs and we (they) had some lunch. It was pretty apparent Little sister wasn't going to have a nap and wasn't feeling well. I called Mom to see if I could give her something so she would at least feel well enough to relax and take a nap. Meanwhile Clyde came over and him and Captain were playing Wii. An hour later I was trying to feed Baby, get Little Sister to at least watch a movie (STILL no nap), my niece was over and I was trying to get her down for a nap without distracting Little Sister (they are besties) and feed Baby. I got two out of three. LS wouldn't even settle down to watch a movie and was complaining that her ear was hurting.
Finally I decided it was bad enough to interrupt Mom's work. I called her again and she came to take her to the doctor. Soon she leaves all of a sudden Captain is DONE putting up with Clyde. Again I send him to his room... more I-don't-like-you's more door slamming more waking up of sleeping children.
Well, to wrap up a very long post after a short time the Captain came up from his room and asked if he could go to Clyde's house to apologize. How sweet is that? Mom and LS came home from the doctor with a reported DOUBLE ear infection (explaining the screaming and crying) and I got to go home a blissful half hour early. Mercifully Baby went to sleep soon after we got home and I also took a MUCH needed nap.