Guns and Mood swings

No,no, not at the same time! The guns come in with my 4 year old son.....he's obsessed, always has been. I mean that kid started making machine gun sounds as soon as he could move his mouth! I resisted guns for so long because I don't believe in them, my Republican NRA husband does though.....another topic later on that. The little man chewed food in the shape of shooting things and used anything he could as a weapon. I was so freaked out! I swore I wouldn't have the "kind of kid" that was into violence and general mayhem. Well....jokes on me, he loves both. We were told to maybe get him a gun to demystify it, maybe he will be less interested in it if he has one. My husband, being MacGyver, decided to make guns for the kids out of wood. Well Ian has had a field day ever since, never has stopped shooting. Gets in trouble at school for using his gun finger! Ha, wtf am i supposed to do about that? "Ian, put down your finger now, you could hurt someone with that!" We often joke that Ian will either be in our military forces or a deranged kid on the clock tower. Not funny I know but seriously he's obsessed. The sounds start as soon as he arises and don't quit till bed time.
The Mood swings come in with my 7 year old daughter (or me some days). Some times we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or the wrong side of our head. It was one of those moody mornings here. It started with me trying to enforce the morning rules namely do your chores first (getting dressed, eating, brushing teeth) before playing, reading etc. Well that just started the whole moody thing in her flying. The whining starts "why" or "no i won't do it" blah, blah. Instead of arguing like i usually do I tried to just calmly state (for the 1 millionth time) what we do in the am before the fun stuff. The whining continued so I tried to implement the new parenting stuff i am learning namely to try not to engage and over talk or get too emotional. "That's 1", I said. Whining complaining, defiance continue, "that's 2" I say. Now she's really getting pissed that she can't get her way. She gets to 3 and needs a time out now for 7 minutes. She refused to go of course, talking back, whining so I have to ask Hubby to carry her in the room. He's lecturing on the way which i helpfully (!) point out is off limits at this point. About 5 minutes later i go check on the moody maven and she is still pouting, so i calmly ask about what she wants for lunch and say, "come out when you are done with bed and getting dressed." At this point i want to do my usual of lecturing, explaining, maybe more blaming but I'm not supposed to so i don't.
At this point we're now running late I"m getting pissed and starting to mumble. I have this friggen bracelet on that I"m supposed to move to the other wrist each time I complain, nag, badger, shame etc. Before 9 am I've moved it 3 times! I'm so relieved to get both the kids off to school and hubby off to his business trip. Finally some time to myself (exasperated by 9am!). Luckily i have a meeting and coffee planned with a friend so I can get some sanity back, some perspective, some guidance and CAFFEINE!