“Where do I put this fire? This bright red feeling? This tiger lily down my mouth; it wants to grow to twenty feet tall…”

Do you ever have one of those days? One of those days where you find yourself freaking out over every single little thing? Where you feel like a monster of a mommy, snarling and snapping with very little provocation? Welcome to my day. I think it started with Scott making me more mad than I’ve been at him in a very long time. Couple that with his inability to apologize, even when he knows he’s been a total and complete arse and is totally in the wrong. Add to that a puppy who chews on everything and pees everywhere and a horse of a dog who insists on provoking the aforementioned puppy even though he’s easily 5 or 6 times bigger than her. Then there’s Jack. Holy cow, friends. I love him with all of my heart and soul. I would unflinchingly die for him. But there are days when I want to sell him to the highest bidder. Seriously. I have to step back and realize he’s only three years old. And he’s a boy. He has toys EVERYWHERE. No one child needs this many toys!! He’s got plastic shoeboxes of toys (blocks, cars, farm animals, stuff for his kitchen), a toybox that doesn’t shut and an overflowing bookshelf. So after going the rounds with him three or four times because he thinks it is SO fun to take the lid of the box and dump it’s contents on the floor but when it’s time to clean up, it’s “hard work” and he’s “too tired” to pick it up. We have a “put the contents of one box away before emptying the contents of another” rule but with two chewing dogs in the house, we have to be a little more proactive. So we fight about this all morning, then I go in his room to put something away and what do I see? A mountain of books. Apparently, he needed “a blue book” but needed to pull every single book of the shelf and put them in a huge pile to find it. It was all I could do to not load them all in a box and put them on the curb. I managed to growl, “Fix it!” before leaving the room to count to 10. After counting, I realized there was no way he could pick up all of those books and put them on the shelf without A. getting overwhelmed and quitting or B. making an even bigger mess. I came in and told him I would put them away and he needed to go play QUIETLY in another room. While conquering Book Mountain, the puppy comes in Jack’s room, squats and pees. Then, knowing she just put her life in immediate peril ran under the bed and was not coming out for anything. Oh my heck. I was so mad, I literally started seeing spots! I managed to drag her out from under the bed (although by so doing, inadvertently stuck my knee in a warm puddle of piddle which, believe me, did not alleviate my rage) and just started screaming out loud. Not at anyone or anything, just screaming. I’m pretty much waiting for the police to knock on the door and ask where the body is. That seemed to help a little and Jack seems to have gotten over his fear of me. (Which, really at this juncture is a bit premature) I am counting minutes (13) until naptime when I, too, will take a nap and see if that helps. I have lots to do today, though, and really shouldn’t. It’s a good alternative to what I REALLY want to do: namely run away! I seriously just want to drop Jack off at mother in law’s house and drive. Somewhere far, far away where it is clean and quiet and no one calls me “Mommy.” So here’s the question: What do you do when you have these days? Please tell me you have them so I don’t feel so bad!
It’s a few minutes before naptime. I need to go to my happy place—i.e. my bed!