I love beign a mother

When you read that title, you should add some sarcasm. Ok, so not a lot of sarcasm. I really do love being a mother, but somedays....Well, I need a vacation. So why the extra need for a vacation today? My kids have this thing called "Coinstruction" or something like that. It's these little plastic pieces that you use to build things out of coins. It's a bit old for them, but they like to make people and small things like that and occasionally ask for me to make the big things pictured on the box. I really don't mind doing it, it's actually my kind of task, I get to build somethign but don't need any real creativity b/c I'm just copying off the box. So anyways, last time I built them a semi-truck and they played with it for about two minutes before completely destroying it (it took me somethign like an hour or more to make). Then when it came to be time to pick it up, they (well, mainly the 4yo) threw a big fit about how it was tooo big of a mess to clean up, etc etc and it took them forever to get it picked up. So that was over a month ago. It hasn't been brought out since b/c of that episode. Today they asked if they could play with it again, so I got it down and they wanted me to build them a house, so I did (another hour+ job) and it took them about 10 minutes to make it into itty bitty pieces. After a while it got to be close to dinner time so I told them they had to pick it up so we could get the table set. A big fit ensued, and they finally started slooooooowly picking it up. Half an hour later they had hardly made a dent in the mess (despite my being right on top of them about it), so I cooked my own dinner and ate it, while they continued picking up. Another half hour goes by with still only little progress. So I told them they had one hour to get it picked up, and after that it was going to be too late for them to have dinner, they would have to just take a bath and go to bed. They got moving quicker, for a little bit, then slowed back down. I gave them a few reminders, made them stay on the table rather than play, etc but the hour went by. So they got quick baths, with no playing, just got cleaned up and got out. I gave them a few slices of bread so they wouldn't starve and sent them to bed. That was at 6pm. This game will now be put up, in my closet for a very long time. So yes, it's not even 7 yet and my kids have been in bed for almost an hour. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.