All Hell broke loose!

Everything was going great.
Today was very interesting, to say the least. We had a typical morning, which is to say there was some form of chaos at all times. Then the mid-morning was very relaxed. I tried to get the kids to relax because the girl had to go to school, and both kids are kind of sick right now. I thought the more relaxation she got, the better. Took her to school, the boy got his nap, and the trip home was good. Nobody attempted to murder their sibling. Then as the title of this blog post says, all Hell broke loose. 
I had the kids on my lap looking at the computer with me, looking for Phineas and Ferb toys. Had and lost a bidding war for some of those little annoying "fun bracelets" that led me to another auction for the same items. This time victory was ours. There was much celebration in our house. We had just won the right to purchase what could only be described as the GREATEST THING IN THE HISTORY OF ALL MANKIND! That was the level of celebration. My daughter was to say the least, excited. As I was attempting to pay for the item, the kids danced and sang songs in my honor. I was the greatest Dad to ever live. Then something happened and everything changed. It was like my children went from civilized human beings to some sort of brain damaged maniacs. Speaking of brain damage check out this link I included. It's a bit long and the quality isn't the best, but it's amazingly funny.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaUx80JGI0U&feature=related
If I yell at them, does that deter their yelling at each other?
At this point a fight broke out between these two sweet, beautiful, amazing children. Over who should sit in the child size Dora reclining chair. "I was here first!!" "NOOOOOO!!!!" "He pulled my hair!!!" Those were just a few of the phrases I heard as I was typing in my payment information. At this point I thought that my intervening was probably a pretty good idea. The thing is, my kids love being near me, so this fight was literally right behind my computer chair. I turned around and I saw the boy with a handful of the girls hair and  the girl with her hand raised and foot in full karate kick mode. I separated these two warriors only to have it get worse. It seems that a switch was flipped at some point and my two well behaved kids had been snatched away and replaced by these two creatures from my nightmares. Over the next hour I had to remove said Dora chair from our living space, plop my son in timeout on the couch, send the girl up to her room and take three sedatives for my own nerves. Okay, the sedative part is a joke, but holy cow! There was blatant disregard for what I had to say, complete disregard for the safety and well being of our dog, and another fist fight. Sometimes I just don't know what to do.
Proper discipline.
I like to think that I am pretty good when it comes to consistency of discipline with my kids. By that I mean, I use any and all methods I can think of. I've tried everything. I mentioned the timeout and sending the girl to her room. I've taken toys away, and as I've mentioned in an earlier post, I've even popped them on their behinds. Again, nothing to cause pain, but to get their attention so please don't go crazy on me with abuse claims. I have never, nor will I ever, hurt my children. Sometimes it just seems like nothing will work. I think that their are points where it doesn't matter what kind of discipline you use, your kids are going to act up. Especially when there are more than one kid. I think all siblings are going to have conflicts with each other at some point, and it's nothing that can be avoided. My kids love each other, that much is obvious. They just get on each others nerves sometimes. Then the fatigue factor that my 4 year old faces doesn't help the situation. 
After it was all said and done and I had properly relaxed my own tension by taking a two minute timeout of my own, we had a pretty good evening. I had the kids sit on my lap while we watched their evening show, and everyone got along like nothing had happened. I think it just shows that kids are going to have emotional outbursts from time to time and how we as parents handle it can help or hurt the situation. I used to have a real problem with patience and the yelling wasn't just from the kids. I would yell at them. A lot. It didn't solve anything. I still can get inpatient when fights break out, or there is misbehavior, but I handle it a lot better. When I am stressed I think the kids feed off from that, so I am really trying to be calm under these circumstances. I think it helps diffuse the bomb that is misbehaving children.
So my advise to all parents with young children is this: Know that there are going to be trying times when you just want to pull out all of your hair, or run yourself into oncoming traffic. The best way to handle it is to remain calm, and try to be the person who solves the problem for the kids and not contribute further to the problem. If that doesn't work, I guess there is always the sedatives!
Have a good night and I hope to see you here tomorrow.