I give up

Help!

Just how DOES one keep a routine - not even a schedule - when every day brings problems intent on messing everything up??

Like today for example: We are supposed to start school at 9 AM (OK, that does sound like a schedule instead of a routine, but hear me out). In the 45 minutes since 9 AM, Batty has had 3 tantrums and 4 cases of disobeying me (i.e. writing in a book right after I told her not to, etc). We found a nasty smell in Roses room and had to try and figure out what it was (it was bad enought that I didn't want to wait, I guess I could have, but when Jeffrey's up it is again that much harder to do things like go under her bed). Strip sheets, peer around room, can't figure it out. Still smells. Rose is asked to do handwriting, she gets obnoxious and has to be dealt with (my dealing with her isn't all that great either, basically we had a stand off - I politely said I didn't like her tone of voice and she just stared at me blankly and refused to restate it or apologize...I just left it at that...anything else would have turned the whole morning into a fight). She finds the ONE pencil without a point and spends 5 minutes trying to sharpen it (but it has an eraser, mom, I need an eraser! Ummm, yeah, we have a million erasers!) Then Batty breaks a shade trying to get it to open. The little girls don't want to do what I've set up so go upstairs and get loud in the room next to Jeffrey's and have to be sent somewhere else. Did I mention I'm sick?

I see no "routine" there, and no way to fix the chaos when no one is willing to play nice, act nice, be nice. I'm being nice!! Angela, you are so right that special needs play into this. I just wish I knew what to do.

OK, gotta run, Rose is now having a tantrum over her handwriting again. I had five whole minutes there where they were working! ;-)

Love,