Almost time for school to start

This blog won't have any pictures but I will post another picture post soon with the rest of our summer pictures.  This post is just to vent some motherly or parental frustrations.  So, as I am sure many of you with children are experiencing, I am experiencing great frustration with my boys constantly bickering, fighting, back talking and pretty much bad attitudes and tattle tailing all the way around and back!  Oh and RUDENESS!  I get back talk or attitude for just about everything I ask them to do.  Since this is the last week of summer before school starts I am trying really hard to get them back in shape(probably waited to long) so we can enjoy our last week together and so I don't get calls from the principals office in the first week of school for my unruly children.  Whew!  I feel better since I got all of that out.  So back to what I was saying about getting them back in shape.  What I mean by this is that I am trying to get them back in order so I don't feel uneasy about how they will act when they are in public and away from me.  This week we started swats for tattle tailing( that way they have to make sure it is really something serious before they tell because the person telling gets 1 swat for tattling) It has worked so far today.  Now I have never really been a fan of washing a kids mouth out with soap(don't know why) just not something I have ever done. But back when our grandparents went to school( barefooted in the snow) they got licks and the teacher would wash theirs mouths out with soap on a daily basis so I guess it is not that bad.  My first victim of the mouth washing was Blake.  He has been talking back a lot lately, adding his 2 cents about everything, and having a bad attitude.  He was shocked that I made him do that and I have to say he had and much CLEANER mouth for the rest of the day and doesn't want that to happen again!  I guess it was worth it.  I have also gone back to carrying my cute little snow man rubber spatula in the car with me at all times so the snowman can smile at them while he is swatting their butts.  He got a work out this morning in the Sam's parking lot and man did I have a quiet ride home.  And I know some of you may be asking yourselves, why in the world didn't I do this all summer?.  Well I did, and have tried various different things also, while I have probably not been the most consistent with the punishments this summer, I have not let them just run wild either.  Others of you might be thinking, "Man those are some pretty harsh punishments". All I can say is 3 boys(very energetic and all boy, boys) in the same house... Enough said. I think all kids sense that school is about to start and for some reason that triggers something in them to test their parents one last time..... OK I think that is it for now.