Snow Day #39,401,749,201

Another snow day here in our neck of the woods.  At first it was just going to be a two hour delay, we were doing pretty good with that information.  Then it turned into a full day off and that's when things got crazy, real fast!
Matthew is really obsessed with "tricking" people and what he deems to be "April Fools Day" jokes.  Unfortunately these are not contained to the actual April Fools Day.  He jumps out at people and screams in their faces multiple times a day....you can see how this would get real old, real fast.  It is not funny, in fact the other day he did it to Joel while he was standing at the top of the steps.  That could have been real dangerous, but Matthew just will not listen.  This is where kids who struggle with attachment issues vary greatly from "typical" developing peers.  I get that to some degree it is completely normal for a nine year old boy to like tricks and jokes.  The problem comes when they obsess about them and fail to listen to the word 'NO'.   The same conversation about why they cant do something is had over and over and over and over and over again.  It is draining on the parent and unbelievably frustrating.  It makes the parent feel like a complete failure as it seems no progress is made after all of their efforts. 
A mere two days ago, Matthew thought it would be funny to play a joke on his brothers.  He placed a heavy ceramic mug filled with water on top of the door, so that when opened the cup would fall.  As you can see there are several things wrong with this picture.  While we were lucky the cup didn't land on anyone's head, the cup shattered into a million pieces, water was all over the wood floors and his brothers, they were scared and crying and he is in the corner laughing.  We discussed that this was not okay, that the jokes needed to stop, that this could have been really dangerous.  Blah, Blah, Blah!  Fast forward to this morning......he does the same. exact. thing.  WHY????????  I am so tired of it!!!!!
The boys come running to tell me, I call Matthew down and he lies.....blatantly lies.  I tried not to engage, just told him "That is a lie.  You did something you knew you were not allowed to do and instead of accepting your consequences with dignity you are lying to try and avoid punishment.  It will not work, lying will only make it worse."  To no avail....cause,  He didn't do it.....um I just heard the entire thing go down, yes you did!  The cup didn't break....commence walking upstairs where there is a broken cup.  He already cleaned up the water.....then why am I standing in a puddle????  AHHHHHH!
He is now in his room, I am trying to breathe and drink my coffee.

Getting me through snow days since....2010!