A Strategical Parenting Error

So I quite possibly may not have used the BEST judgement in regards to my children yesterday.

Let's just say yesterday was a day that I wandered out of my bedroom only to make sure the children had food and were not killing each other. I apologized to my husband for not being able to be a wife or a parent, but well... I just couldn't muster the gumption. The point being, the children spent alot of time yesterday watching TV or playing in their room, except for a short period where they did get outside to play in the yard with daddy.... this is not nearly enough time to release all the energy that a 5 and 3 yr old boys create in one day.

After dinner, I drew a bath in our bathroom (also known as the little pool) and aterwards, they snuggled with me in our big chair and watched yet more TV. Lo and behold, the new gladiators was on NBC.... You know, the remake of the old classic, early 90's, American Gladiators where poor contestants get the crap beat out of them with foam jousting sticks and oversized boxing gloves. I thought.... the boys would find this interesting and, bonus for me, it is not animated.

Big Mistake

The boys went wild!!! I mean, time to bring out the cage and pad the walls with pillows wild. The LOVED IT!! They, of course, immediately took color sides ( it is the blue competitor against the red competitor) and named daddy and I the gladiators (Wolf for daddy and Crush for me). They "wrestled" on our big king size bed and climbed their daddy like a mountain. The only way we could get them into their beds was to pretend our stairs were the mountain thingy the competitors climb and the hallway to their rooms was the gauntlet they had to wrestle past the gladiators (who were armed with pillows, FYI). It took a good 1/2 hour for them to finally settle down and fall asleep.

Perhaps American Gladiators is not a good choice for right before bedtime.

I plan to add this to our nomination reel for Parenting of the Year Award.