Dear boys,

I understand the past week or so has been a lot of extra...togetherness for us all. I understand it has been heavy on the "let's kick it around the house while Mommy works and yells a lot" and light on the "let's get the hell out of this house before we kill each other," and believe me, I'm working on it. As God is my witness, there will be camp. Just probably not for all of you, and not at the same time, and regardless, we still gotta focus on not murdering each other anyway, probably, because REASONS. 

Again, I take full responsibility for my own failings here — I keep talking big talk about taking you places but then remembering that there are three of you and psyching myself out because being that outnumbered in public still scares the crap out of me — but I do think I have observed a few specific behaviors that I would like y'all to work on, both as a collective herd of wild animals and as individual special snowflakes. 

1) Cups. Boys, the cup usage situation is out of control. It is B-A-N-A-N-A-S, as the kids might have said 10 years ago. You may not believe this, but cups are actually reusable. I know! Crazy. Also totally bananas. Maybe G-R-A-P-E-S or P-I-N-E-A-P-P-L-E-S, even. 

But it is true. If you get yourself a drink of water, then take one swallow, the water and the cup do not immediately need to be hurled into the sink as UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN. And then a fresh cup is not required 20 minutes later for your next drink of water. Likewise, if your cup has juice in it, and you decide you would like more juice, you can simply refill the cup. The same goes for just about every liquid imaginable! And don't even get me started on the possibility of rinsing a cup out and then refilling it with a completely different beverage of your choice! IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. 

2) Bowls and plates and utensils. See above, more of the same. I don't even understand what you're putting in and on all these bowls and plates — you appear to mostly be eating things directly out of boxes, snack pouches and other wrappers, given the evidence strewn all over the kitchen counter — but you've GOT to stop dirtying up an entire service for 12 every single day by lunchtime. If I unload the dishwasher and there are already more dishes piled up in the sink than will fit in a single load, you are using too many damn dishes. 

Yes, I could buy disposable plates and utensils, but frankly, I don't think the planet can handle that level of garbage. I mean, we've all seen Wall-E. Get it together, guys.

3) Toilet seat. Put it down. Come on. Also, AIMING. Please work on that. It's starting to get full-on public-restroom-in-the-subway up in here, and I really think we can do better. Let's at least shoot for "public restroom, but like, a nice one."

4) Toilet stuff, cont. This technically only applies to one of you, who I shall not call out by name but I think we all know who I'm talking about, but for the love of God, going to the bathroom does NOT require you to fully strip off your shoes, pants and underwear every. Single. Time. Particularly if you then require assistance to get your shoes, pants and underwear back on every. Single. Time. This Bizarro George Costanza stuff needs to stop, immediately. 

5) Speaking of pants, cont. While I would very much prefer that you refrain from answering the front door without my presence and okay — it's not just a safety thing, but also we keep getting Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm tired of politely explaining that we're not interested because we're busy worshiping Xenu Satan — at the very, very least, if you DO open the front door, please make sure that you are at least wearing pants. Okay, fine. Please just have underwear on, bare minimum. See? I'm flexible.

6) Stop fighting. Stop fighting. Stop fighting.

7) No, seriously. Stop fighting.

8)  Stop...I don't know. Doing whatever you're doing that's making him scream like that. Are you looking at him? Then STOP LOOKING AT HIM.

9) Seriously. I have no idea what happened or who I should punish but SOMEBODY is going to their room, okay?

10) The next person who whines about being bored and/or having nothing to do will get two (2) grade-appropriate math worksheets printed off the Internet to complete as a non-optional activity. So. You know. Maybe go play outside while I stay here, quietly morphing more and more into my own mother, because I said so, because somebody's gonna get hurt, because you were not raised in a barn, because I am not your maid, etc.

Love,

Your Mother

P.S. So apparently we also should have discussed why you don't spray people who are inside the house with the garden hose from outside the house. My bad. Clear oversight on my part, OBVIOUSLY. I will amend this list and get you an updated version later. Let me just rinse out my wine glass.