The Witching Hour

So about 5 days a week, sometimes more, a strange phenomenon happens at my house. Usually it begins to happen as soon as I pick my kids up at our bus stop after school at 3:55pm. So in that 5 minutes it takes for us to drive the 3/4 of a mile distance from our stop to our house, a magical transformation takes place. And not necessarily the "good" kind of magic either...

4 o'clock, I call it the Witching Hour.

Precisely at 4:00pm my two girls change, from the sweet, spunky, kind, full of manners (of course perfect), kids I had dropped off at the stop that morning, to some strange, crabby, sassy, tired and hungry little alien creatures. I can't explain the transformation, it is usually hard to spot with the naked eye. But inevitably,... it happens. Each day I nervously await the arrival of the little body-snatchers, disguised as my children.

But I have learned, a bit of "down-time" and a snack seem to usually bring them back to themselves within about 1 hour.