ciroccoj | Justin, Justin, Justin, what are we going to do with you?

Pretty good day overall. For me, at least. And for Daniel. Chris has been irritable and tired and Justin has been Justin to the nth degree.

Went to the Museum of Nature with the whole famn damily. I had a pretty good time, despite the fact that Justin was rather rough and Daniel was rather spaced out. Chris and Daniel went to see the Genome Project exhibit while Justin and I watched the same video of lava erupting about forty times and discussed it ad nauseum. We met for lunch, then wandered around the dinosaur exhibit together for a while. I took charge of Daniel after Chris gave him a time-out because he (Chris) had finally gotten tired of repeating things over and over and trying to keep him from distractedly wandering off. I had a pretty good time with Daniel, actually - looking at different rocks, talking about the Canadian Shield and seeing what minerals are found where, etc.

Caught up with Chris back at the Genome Project later, and found out that he'd been having a hell of a time with Justin too. He finally took Justin outside to the mammoth sculptures, but even there the kid was still trying to destroy everything.

Came back home and decided to give Chris a break - he looked like he really needed it - and sent him off to nap while I took charge of the kids. Did "paper games" (my euphemism for drawing, reading and writing exercises - hey, it works ;) and read to them. And kept them under control. But every time I turned my back for a second, Justin would try to beat the crap out of Daniel.

So now Justin is in the basement. He's got plenty of toys there, he's not in a time out, but he's just simply not fit to be around other people today. Unless he's got constant redirecting, he's just too damn violent. And I think all of us have had enough.

It's funny, I kept looking at Chris trying to deal with the kids through his own irritability today and thinking, before last week I would've (a) not wanted to come with him to the Museum, and (b) been completely unable to do a better job than him dealing with the kids' personality disorders in a creative, positive way. Today... it was annoying, but a challenge that I was able to meet.

I don't think I'm ever going off anti-depressants.