My head aches, I am tired, I am sitting in a room full of stacked furniture and half-constructed kitchen units, and everything is covered in a layer of thick, chalky dust. It's nearly the end of the first week and I am feeling the strain of having my house turned upside down by builders, plumbers, electricians and kitchen fitters. But it's not the work itself that is taking its toll on my mental state, it's the madenning behaviour of my two troublesome children.

Since Monday I have worked hard to keep my kids out of the house and occupied (one of them is in school which makes my job a little easier). Generally their behaviour ranges from hyper-active to hyper-over-active, like most kids, but being turfed out of their home and dragged around town pining for hot dinners seems to have pushed their behaviour into the realm of over-hyper-active out-of-control; screaming, whining, moaning, arguing, fighting etc. etc.

Yesterday evening was the icing on the cake for me. As an end of week treat, and yet another option for dinner, we decided to take the kids to a well known pizza establishment. Fully aware that my two year old son had not had his usual daily nap, and that my four year old daughter was at the end of a draining week of school, we went ahead with our plans. My son was an over-tired argumentative mess. After noisily demanding a balloon before we had even sat down at our table, his behaviour deteriorated to something not unlike that of a caged tasmanian devil. I decided he was past the point of no return and tried to walk him to sleep around the car park in his push-chair. This failed, so my husband resorted to driving him around the car park in the car while the rest of us (my in-laws also experienced this joyous outing) finished our meal in silence. Well, not in comlete silence. My daughter's mood was not quite tasmanian devil status, but was definitely verging on the style of a stuck record on fast speed as she whined repeatedly about...well, everything.

I was slowly coming apart at the seams as we rushed through dinner, boxed up the two uneaten pizza's for my son and husband, and dashed out of the door (remembering to pay of course). It didn't lift my mood to find that when we returned to the car my son was still wide awake...and grinning mischieviously.