is 6pm too early for bed?

If you've been wondering where we've been all week, I (Becky) have been drinking heavily and taking sedatives. Well... that's not entirely accurate, but I'd be happier right now if it were true. The kids are on my last nerve, and it's a very short one in my little toe. Every day this week when Joshua comes home from school, the kids get wild. Maybe it's Christmas mania rubbing off on Joshua during the school day. It shouldn't be because he doesn't even understand all the Christmas hype, but holiday insanity isn't reasonable. At any rate, bedtime has been moving progressively earlier as the week progresses. Then today happened. This afternoon Patience peed a puddle on the floor, walked across the room dripping a trail behind her, peed a second puddle where she stopped, and then continued to walk around the downstairs in her soaked sweatshirt, pants, and slippers. I found out about the incident when I had a close encounter with one of the puddles. After cleaning the floor and changing clothes, Patience spent 20 or 30 minutes alone in her room for her own protection. We had been having bathroom issues with Patience a while ago, but she's been doing really well recently. Not only has she been having fewer accidents but she also has been telling us when she has them (because she only gets punished when she doesn't tell us). What happened today is a mystery to me. My horoscope for the week must have been bad. Then when it was time to leave to pick up Joshua, I discovered that even though Patience had been getting ready to leave for at least 10 minutes, she still didn't have even one shoe on. We've been trying to help her understand that she needs to tell us when she wants help, but it obviously hasn't made a dent. It turns out that her velcro strap had pulled out, and she couldn't get it back where it needed to be. I had to move things along, and we still barely made it to school. The rest of the afternoon involved a lot of repeating myself and nearly sending the older 2 to time out before they listened. At dinner, Garty decided he didn't like his chicken, so he messed around for 40 minutes. I fed him the last 4 pieces so we could move on with life only to take him out of his chair and discover that he had hidden the other pieces under his rear end when I wasn't watching. Interestingly, when we had chicken the other night he inhaled 2 bowls of it. Peter's away speaking for a campus group tonight, so I decided that for my sanity I'd let the kids watch a movie and then get them ready for bed early. When instructed to go choose a movie, Joshua decided instead to mess with the movie that was already in the VCR. He jammed the VCR and destroyed the tape in the process. After 5 minutes on the steps, we discussed the fact that since they haven't been obeying very well today, they shouldn't be allowed to watch a movie at all. However, because I love them (translated: because I don't want to deal with them right now), I would still let them watch a movie as long as they cooperated really well at bedtime. Barney ends in 5 minutes, so we'll see how things go. If anyone has any suggestions on how to survive the weekend (other than the aforementioned relaxation aids), feel free to let us know!