Arsenic Hour

Arsenic hour. Witching hour. It's 5:00 somewhere hour. The actual time of day may vary depending on your circumstances.

What is it? A time of day, before dinner, when parents and children start to go insane. Tired. Hungry. Beat. After a day in battle or play. 

If your children wake up at 6:30AM...you may find your arsenic hour hits about 1 hour after they wake up from afternoon naps, after a solid 10 hour day of being a human playground, feeding trough, and wireless vacuum cleaner.

Or if they don't take after noon naps, maybe after 8 hours or less if you've been stuck in a home alone with short people chasing you into the bathroom sometimes on all fours and sometimes in a full on mini sprint. And if these same small persons have been intercepting your best bites of breakfast and lunch before they even reach your mouth this may cause it to hit even quicker.

No matter how or when it hits at your home it will probably most resemble a mini psychiatric ward minus the straight jackets. (Btw...still looking for an angel investor to jump start my toddler straight jacket invention.)

It happens with infants.

It happens with toddlers.

And it happens with grown ups.

No matter the exact time. Or the place. When I know and sense that husband relief or dinner followed by a chaotic bedtime routine and then peace is so close...I. start. to. lose. it. Especially when dinner is still under construction.

Some days I squeak by unscathed from this heinous hour by strategic planning, including, but not limited to:

Dinner from a box, can, freezer, or crockpot/slowcooker or fast food of any kind,

in combination with

• strapped down babes in a stroller as we forge down the street in our double-wide.
• letting the hooligans loose in the yard. 
• or invading an unsuspecting friend's home with little or no warning. 
• or taking them somewhere. other. than. our. home.

The low point- It is sometimes in these hours that the temptation to go back to work solely for the luxury of a lunch/coffee break each day hits hard.

But then again, like clockwork, every night when they are asleep, I find myself missing them. (Some days less than others.) Missing their tiny hugs and kisses, fake laughing followed by belly laughs into hysterics, their little feet running laps around the living room and chasing me into the bathroom and spilling water, food and bodily fluids on the floor. And I can't wait to do it all over it again the next day...that is until the clock strikes crazy again.