This is my first summer staying at home with the kids in nearly four years.  I am just going to be really honest, with the hopes that someone will completely identify or give me amazing advice.  My kids are bad.....  They are!  I love them with every breathe that I take, but they embarrass me endlessly.  They embarrass me at supermarkets, restaurants, the park, swimming in the lake, and so on.  Crimson walks up to strangers telling them about her farting, Caylon bumps into strangers, Rylee does not understand how to wear a dress like a "lady", and Clover whines about EVERYTHING.  I am slowly learning that school was created for two reasons;  educating children, and giving parents a break from those children.
  How do we survive the summer as parents of more than one child?  I feel like I am becoming a clown day after day, not the parent that I strive to be.  How do I begin to entertain these bored children for almost nine hours of sunlight??  The park is a great choice.  We live there.  The park in Pell City is amazing!  They have an enclosed Kids Castle and a huge water area with sand and a beautiful pier.   I try to take them after noon and stay there until four, and yet they still scream and throw things at me when it is time to leave.  So my job to entertain them seems like a failure when there are at least six parents giving me that "death stare".   Yeah, we live in the day of DHR and all.....but you know that look.  The look that screams "Beat them!  Kids aren't supposed to act that way!".  I smile and pack my screaming kids in the car thinking that maybe they will get used to our schedule and do better.  They never do.  Do I beat them like all those parents would like me to or do I hope for the best the next day?
   I love days at home.  Days where the computer is my friend, the kids are playing with each other and our  cats, and walking to the road picking blackberries is the most vigorous activity that we see.  Those days make me happy.  Except.....the kids destroy my house, like vicious rats.  They throw every toy from childbirth onto the floor, and they have contests to see which one of them can succeed into grounding Gushers in the floor.  I then become a demon that they hate to see.  That demon one that yells and cannot figure out why they act that way when we are having a relaxing day.  I do not mean to be that way, but it seems inevitable.
  To sum it up:  How do I end this vicious cycle?  Am I bad parent?  What is the stay at home mom's survival list?  Where the hell do I find it?  And are my kids teaming up against me to see what it is like when I go "ape shit crazy"???
  Other than all of the above....These children are my everything.  I adore them.  I just do not want to be the person that ruins their summer.