like piranhas to open flesh in the amazon river.

{i REALLY love holding sleeping baby dean.}

...

i bribe my kids.

a good bribe can get any kid in the gibson home to do just about anything.

and any mom will tell you,

finding the right bribe is the key to every bribing mom's success.

and right now,

that bribe is shave ice.

so after two weeks of making their beds,

putting their laundry in the washing machine,

brushing their teeth,

clearing their plates,

not fighting,

reading or pretending to read their books,

cleaning up toys,

listening,

taking out the trash,

scrubbing toilets,

vacuuming,

going poo {yep, i really give the boys points for this--VERY rewarding to us all},

letting someone else have the toy they wanted first,

getting in the car without punching anyone else,

riding in the car without punching anyone else,

and pretty much any other made up reason i can think of to give anybody a point

{my bonus category is a REAL winner in this arena of bribery and made up reasons to give points}.

so all of these things are what earn them points to take a trip at the end of the week to shave ice.

you can't ever lose a point,

you can only earn points,

because you're ALWAYS working toward earning points.

there are even sleep in points:)

i know, i know,

GENIUS.

and you have to earn a certain number of points, 

which i have "systematically" made so high that you have to do all of your jobs 

every day to even earn the trip to shave ice.

THIS ISN'T ABOUT POINTS!

this is not where we are going with this.

this is about the end of the night.

let's get back to the end of the night.

so like i said,

we went to shave ice.

because they earned all of their points.

and the kids ordered their massively tall shave ices,

chase spilled lots of his on the table,

and then he licked it off of the table.

sean wiped up the table a bunch of times with the shave ice rags they've so grossly provided 

because he's the clean one in the family,

and he likes to wipe down tables.

it reminds him of his subway sandwich making days.

i'm sure of it.

i held baby dean on my chest the entire time while he snoozed,

the kids ran from bees,

and chase tried to break into the red covered garbage can once,

but i veered him away with my foot

and told him he could earn a "stay away from the garbage can point" if he did.

the bonus category is REAL, and it's awesome:)

{and it lets me make up stuff in ANY moment of need. 

like stay away from the garbage can--god bless the bonus point category.}

so everyone finished their shave ice,

we walked back to the car,

and brennan told us he thought he was gonna puke,

but he didn't.

{i'm so glad this isn't about puking shave ice.}

and at some point in the near future after all of that we finally got home. 

mostly all in one piece.

and i was feeling pretty good about how great it is to bribe the kids with shave ice.

and that's when things got exciting.

because somehow,

like piranhas to open flesh in an amazon river,

those 4 kids tore us apart.

mostly just because we're tired.

especially at 9:28pm at night.

one second things were fine,

and the next second,

i was cleaning poop out of the upstairs tub.

which, might i add 

required IMMEDIATE evacuation of all wet bodies in the tub,

and produced crying children who now had to take showers instead of baths in the tub,

all the while dean was crying in his bed because he needed to be fed.

and then minutes later...

my particular favorite of the evening, 

was RIGHT as we were in the homestretch,

rounding the corner to the home plate of everyone showered in record breaking time,

despite the code brown hold up,

with everyone almost in bed,

LIKE WE COULD MAYBE SEE A MOVIE ON THE COUCH IN OUR NEAR FUTURE

kind of night,

a binky got accidentally flushed down the toilet.

and the crying started all over again,

and sean was sticking his hand down inside the toilet to try to save the binky from what we now know was sure and immediate sewage death,

and what do ya know, dean still wasn't fed.

but by then, at least there wasn't any poop left in the shower.

kids-1 billion 

million gazillion points

parents-ZERO points

maybe this was actually about points.

ok, but really,

who wants to come do my sink full of dishes now?