Screaming gulls and other nighttime woes

There has been all sorts of nonsense going on around here after I put the kids to bed. There is yelling, fighting, thumping, doors slamming, etc. As far as I can tell the problem is Ian wants the girls to play with him when they are all supposed to be sleeping. They won't and he gets mad, then they get mad, then I get mad. He came to me a while ago to tattle:

Ian: The gulls are going to yell at me and they are going to wake up Elizabeth!!

Me: What are you going to do to the girls that would make them yell?

Ian: NO!! I am not trying to tell you about me I'm trying to tell you about the gulls! They are going to wake Elizabeth up!!

Me(wearily): Please just go to bed and leave the girls alone

In other news, our upstairs bathroom is about to become closed to the general public. The layout of our house is such that all four kids are upstairs with a bathroom for themselves, Karl and my bedroom is downstairs. This would all be well and good if the children would go to bed and stay in bed. But no, they are up until 10 pm getting into all sorts of shenanigans up there, many involving that bathroom. Here are some things I have discovered them doing:

Annika and Ian carrying buckets of water in his room and dumping them on his hardwood floor so they could play 'swimming pool'

Someone put a roll of toilet paper in the sink and got it wet, then tore off little wet pieces to create a sort of paper mache effect all over the toilet, sink, floor.


Smearing toothpaste everywhere (I already blogged about this one)


Pouring water on themselves and each other


Due to all this activity, I have decided that henceforth that bathroom will be closed. Karl is purchasing a lock and it will be installed as soon as possible.