Have you ever had an anxiety attack?

You should try it.

First, run out of money to refill your meds. Wait a few days. Then, start feeling all irrational and panicky. Be certain that the Universe is conspiring against you.

You will feel tired and sluggish. The room will spin around you. This is normal.

Get irritated with everyone that you see. This is because they are all idiots. The Universe is conspiring to fill your day with morons. Yell at people to make yourself feel better.

Sit at your desk feeling overwhelmed. You won't accomplish anything, of couse. Drive home. Miss your exit.

Get your children. Sit in the car with them at the pharmacy. Pull up behind a minivan. Wait. Another car will pull up behind you. You will get boxed in. The minivan in front of you will sit there, unmoving, for half an hour. You won't be able to move. The car behind you will not let you out. Listen to the Bear cry. She will panic because her arm hurts. Listen as she sobs out "it's breaking me!" for a full ten minutes. Wait for the van to move. Notice that you're still boxed in. Listen to the children crying in the backseat. Wait for the van to move. Notice that you're still boxed in. Listen to the children crying in the backseat. Wait for the van to move. Notice that you're still boxed in. Listen to the children crying in the backseat. Call your husband's cell. He won't answer. Call his desk phone. He won't answer. Call your husband's cell. He won't answer. Call his desk phone. He won't answer. Call your husband's cell. He won't answer. Call his desk phone. He won't answer. Your hands will start to shake. Your chest will constrict. A stabbing pain will shoot through your lungs. You will panic and start yelling at the van in front of you. Your hands will shake harder. You will start to hyperventilate. Try to breathe. Fail. Your brain will race in circles. Good luck trying to calm that one down. Round and round, round and round. You are convinced that you will never make it out of this car, that you will never be able to maintain your calm long enough to take the children home without screaming/beating/killing them. The pharmacy won't have your prescription. They won't have a refill for your daughter's inhaler. Your husband will say matter-of-fact things that are true but unhelpful. You will scream at him and hang up the phone. Consider throwing the phone out the window and running over it several times, a la Office Space. Decide against it. No money for new cell phone. Keep panicking - you'll get the hang of it soon. Drive away. Breathe deeply. Listen to the children suddenly laughing together again. Keep driving. Keep breathing.

Go home. Eat toast for dinner. Lots of jam. Feed toast to children for dinner. Shut up - it's whole wheat. Take pills. Paxil. Valium. Meclizine. Sit on the couch. Let the children romp. Keep breathing. Keep sitting. Soon, you'll start to relax. You'll still feel an underlying anxiety. Yell at your children and family at random intervals. Stare at the television. The sharp pain in your chest will come back. You are having a heart attack. You are dying. Feel a sharp twinge in your midsection. It is appendicitis. It doesn't matter that your appendix is on the other side. This is it. It's a kidney stone. You're ovulating. A hernia.

Realize that you're an idiot.

Listen to the Bear cough and hack in her bed. Listen to Tank cry and scream in hers. Klonopin. At some point, the anxiety will subside in favor of a nice fuzzy feeling. You will still be anxious, but you won't really care. See bugs on the carpet. Wait, no. That's just you. Are the lights moving? No, that's just you.

Go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.

I'm IT

Because Summer tagged me:

7 Random Things About Me (In No Particular Order)

1. I have been considering shaving my head for the last three months. Seriously. I have the worst hair in the known Universe. I figure if I shave it all off, maybe it will grow back in better?

2. I was engaged to a different Boy when I met Husband (again). I broke it off with him, and the rest (as they say) is History. Only very rarely do I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't done that.

3. I have always wished I was *older* than I am. I *look* a lot younger than I actually am. I hate that. I feel old. I want to look it, too. (I'm sure when I hit 40 I'll change my tune.)

4. On more than one occasion, I have wanted to smack one of my students for being a shit. I content myself with counting slowly to ten, and imagining mean things in my head.

5. Husband has a foot fetish. He, um, likes feet. A lot. I'm down with that. And yet, paradoxically, I can't get him to actually rub my feet when they're sore and hurting and tired. Why is this?

6. I own a girdle. I have been known to wear it in order to fit into certain clothes without busting out the muffin top.

7. I have kleptomaniacal tendencies. Hide the valuables, kids. Just sayin'.

If you want to play, consider yourself tagged and leave a link in the comments. Lots of people have already done this one - not sure if I can think of seven people who haven't!


And now - THREE!

Things that come in threes:

Cry-ers. I made three separate people cry today. Or, more accurately, they made themselves cry. I was just there, and they happened to blame it on me. It's not my fault if you A) forgot you had a quiz today; B) ran and yelled in the hall after I told you not to and ended up in detention; or C) got written up for your third uniform violation, which is going to result in a detention, which totally isn't fair, because it's your mom's fault you didn't get dressed right in the morning, and then your mean old (young) teacher gave you homework for tonight even though technically you weren't supposed to have homework in any classes tonight, but tough shit, you pissed me off and now you have to pay. Really. None of these were my fault. Swear.

Also in threes: nipples. Yesterday, the Bear was in the tub and looked down at her chest.

What are these?

Um, well, those are nipples. When you grow up and have a baby, and it's hungry, that's where the milk comes out. Remember when Tank was a baby, and she had mommy milk?

I remember that!

Yes, well, that's what nipples are for.

She was, of course, fascinated. I had to distract her because she kept pinching them and laughing. (Somewhere, Husband is freaking out just thinking about that.)

Then, later, she was sitting around as I was putting on my pajama top, when, LOOK!

"NIBBLES!" she exclaimed.

Um, yeah. You could call them that, too...

The irony of that is not lost on me. At all. In fact, I'm thinking of renaming mine. Sounds like a tasty snack, no?

Finally, on the radio this morning, the DJ was taking a call from a guy in Naples, FL. You know how they always say "so-and-so, from Naples" before they come on? Well, the DJ said that, and then he was all, like, holy shit, what a crazy name for a town, I can't believe you're from Naples! You mean Naples, like on boobs? And his female cohort was all like, dumbass, those are *nipples*. Naples is a town in Florida - nipples are on your chest.

I guess that story is only funny if you know that it all took place in Spanish. Because, duh, in Enlish it's just not remotely amusing. Just dumb. Somehow, though, with the language confusion, it was hilarious. I can see where "nipples" and "Naples" sound very similar to someone whose first language isn't English.

So, there you have it. Three references to nipples, and three people made to cry. Plus a meme!

My work here is done.


*Or at least, I used to look, before having children made me all haggard and shit.

Weekend Update

It was actually a fairly productive weekend around here. Yesterday was a pretty good day overall. We got up and made pancakes for breakfast, then spent three hours doing the Bear's "homework" from preschool. For Thanksgiving, all the kids were given a sheet of brown construction paper and told to make a turkey to bring in for their celebration on Wednesday. Two turkeys = three hours. There was craft foam, there was glue, there were stick-on letters, there was glitter, there were fluffly pom-poms, there was "cutting with scissors," which is the Bear's new favorite activity. The kitchen was an absolute mess. We had a pretty good time, though. Then there were muffins to be made, dinner to eat, baths to take.

Today, less fun. We had french toast for breakfast, cleaned out my car, went through the carwash, bought some pantyhose (geez, my weekend sounds boring when you write it out like that), laundry to do, fold, put away, beds to make, cleaning, etc. People were grouchy, tempers were short, I was snippy.

Now Husband is home, all tired and grouchy, I'm still tired and grouchy, the Bear is sick, which makes her tired and grouchy, and Tank broke, lost, or destroyed at least ten different things I needed today. I have a horribly shitty meeting (I accidentally typed *meating* there, and it wasn't even that far off) to look forward to tomorrow morning, and I'm tired and grouchy. Feel like I already said that one.

Wow. Weekend Update was so much funnier when Tina Fey was doing it. I kind of suck at this game.

That's okay. I'm sure the meating will provide lots of fodder for tomorrow.

Pride

Yesterday, as I was surveying the lunchroom, making sure that all was right in the world of lunch-swapping and surreptitious avoidance of veggies in favor of cupcakes, one of my students called out my name as I passed and beckoned me over.

"Hey, what's up?" said I.

"Check it out, Señora!" he cried, pointing to his face.

"Um, what am I looking at here?" I queried. (The acne? The lopsided hair in need of a combing? The braces?)

"MY FIRST BEARD HAIR!"

"Oh, I'm so proud! You go home and show that to your mother. She'll cry."

"I don't have to shave yet, but soon I'll have to," he said. He was so inordinately proud of having produced this one solitary chin hair, he was about to burst his buttons. It was hilarious. It was all I could do to keep a straight face as I congratulated him on this rite of passage, and somehow got involved in a discussion with the other boys at the table of who has shaved yet, how often, who else is growing facial hair. Kind of bizarre, although I do pride myself on being more approachable than some of my colleagues.

Moments like these are some of my favorite parts of being a teacher, especially in a middle school. That one beard hair, and the fact that he wanted to show it to me, gave me warm fuzzies.*


*Not warm and fuzzy enough to wish that my own children were boys, though. I enjoy these things from a distance.

Fried

Well, I made it like halfway through NaBloPoMo on a pretty decent streak. But now, just past the halfway point, I'm totally fried. My brain is like bleeding out my ears.

I have my period.
I quit my soda habit.
It was Halloween week followed by progress reports followed by Parent/Teacher Conferences week.
My ILs were out of town (kind of nice) but my mother was in (kind of stressful).
My children are sick. (Two mild cases of the flu, one middle ear infection, and one amazingly fierce case of hives.)
I'm sick.
Husband is sick.
My FIL is sick.
Tank has taken to waking up at 3 am. For fun. Ready to play.
I had a sub who was a total wack job. That's a whole day I'll never get back.
I have a parent meeting monday with the biggest bitch I've ever met. If you crossed Shirley MacLaine's character from Steel Magnolias with Kathy Bates's character from Misery and threw in a little Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, this lady would still be worse. Must. Not. Bitchslap. Must. Not. Bitchslap.
I am chubby. (Seriously. I have become pudgy. It's gross.)
We're broke. Flat fucking broke.
We have an open house tomorrow. Please, God, let someone want my house.
It's cold. It's supposed to snow tomorrow.

So, it's not that things are *bad*, per se, but there's a lot going on right now, and it's just all been building up. I can't wait for next week. Can't. Wait. No school Wednesday (all day to work on grading, with a break for Turkey dinner at preschool with the kids), feasting and football all day Thursday, lazy lazy Friday (I categorically refuse to leave the house on Black Friday ever again), and then, Saturday...

a night on the town!

As an anniversary gift, my mom and dad got us a night at a *very* nice hotel downtown, and we're going to go out and eat and play and do... stuff. I don't know. Whatever. Four years and nobody's dead yet. Five cars, four moves, three pregnancies, three jobs apiece, two kids in two years, two nights with a blonde waitress, one nervous breakdown, and one gigantic 2200 square foot Victorian albatross hanging around our necks, and we're still together.* Four years next week. (Well, slightly more than a week, but less than two.)

So, yeah. My brain is mush. I planned to go to bed early tonight with a good book, but got caught up playing with the kids, and then sat reading the archives over at UnDomestic for over an hour and watching last week's episode of House. Even though I've already seen it. Because I'm too tired to haul my ass off the couch and off to bed.**

The girls and I have big plans for tomorrow. Pancakes, bran muffins for the week ahead, hand turkeys, and a thorough detailing of my car with the best window-washer and trash-picker-upper a girl could want.



*Feeling like I want to add a partridge in a pear tree here.
**Which I get to myself tonight. Which is nice for stretching out and getting comfy, but also pretty lonely. Meh.