Tybee and I were in the same boat. I remember one day, about 6 weeks after Austin's placement. He had been clingy, demanding, pushing me away, and starting fights. I opened the window, saw 3 inches of snow, and realized school would be cancelled and promptly crawled back into bed and burst into tears.
There's still "THOSE DAYS". We're having one today, actually (We're paying for letting Austin stay up until midnight. On the upside, we haven't paid for it with a tantrum. He has been argumentative a little bit until he realized he was losing "points", and then drew in marker all over the box to a board game, resulting in the markers being confiscated and under "adult rule".. which means he can only use the markers with the permission and supervision of an adult and the markers are now someplace he cannot access. He also had to help me clean the sock the black marker got on.)
Tybee's right... if you do not take care of yourself, you cannot be expected to take care of the boys! As she said, put them in bed early. One thing we do here, is we have one night a week when Austin is fed his supper at 5:30 (Tonight! YAAY!) Then I put him through the bedtime routine about 7:30 or 8:00 (whenever his bedtime is that week) while DH fixes dinner or gets takeout. This allows us one night a week where we have "Adult-only" dinner. We tend to break the rules that night... have soda or iced tea instead of the usual milk,water,juice choices we allow with meals, we may skip the veggies or have a little extra dessert. But the main thing is, it's a BREAK from the enforced routine. We usually let Austin have something he likes such as Kid's Cusine (Bleah! but he loves it) or hot dogs or Chinese takeout or grilled cheese so that it's not a punishment to him.
If you are a stay at home mom, I would also look into your local community center or church and see if they offer "Mommy's morning out", where they do a fun age-appropriate activity for 2-3 hours so you can get your hair done or a hot bath or do the grocery shopping without the "Mommy, can I have this?" song and dance. (I am assuming your kids are not of school age, since you said your oldest is 4?)
Anyhow, as Kate said, it's normal to lose your temper especially in the beginning! One of my social workers told me once that it doesn't matter if you lose your temper. THAT is not the important part. The important part is that they can drive you insane and you'll still feed them and not put them out on the doorstep and you'll apologize and hug them and reconnect when you're back in control
