Freak the Crap Out

We are only four years away from having only one child living at
home and that makes me terribly sad.
I like the noise, the chaos, the mess even though I complain
endlessly about it.
Secretly I love it.
It means I am in the thick of it.
Sometimes I just sit back and take in all the screaming, shrieking
and crying.
Before storming upstairs and unleashing the wrath of a
premenstrual mommy.

Fun fact, I may very well be right in the middle of menopause when
my oldest is graduating from high school.
Or peri-menopause.
And post menopause when my youngest graduates high school.
Meaning my husband needs to have the liquor store on speed dial.
Or I need to have really good hormones.
None of that generic crap.
The good shit.

I am a good mom.
Even when I have days when it is questionable, I know in my heart
that I am doing better than my pre-mommy premonitions.
There were times, before I became a mom, that I did worry I
would end up throwing them Twinkies while sitting in the bathtub
with a gin martini.

But I am doin’ it every day.
I have been punching the mommy time clock for 14 years and nine
months.
Because let’s face it, the “job” starts when you have
your first bout of morning sickness.
Or your first hemorrhoid.
And since then, there are only a few moments that have made me
cringe in regards to how I handled situations.

When I threw the phone across the room when no one was
listening to me.
Did I mention that there was someone on the other end?

The time I forgot to send a lunch in with my oldest when she
was in fifth grade.
Which she loudly and emotionally announced after getting off
the bus, while I had a new friend over.
Who I just proudly told that I “always make sure she has a
lunch” and “how could you forget to send your child to
school without anything to eat???”

Last fall when my cell phone rang while a new neighbor and her
two children were over.
And it was my ex-husband calling.
And the ringtone was set to AN IDIOT IS ATTEMPTING TO REACH
YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE. 
AN IDIOT IS ATTEMPTING TO REACH
YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE.  
AN IDIOT IS ATTEMPTING TO
REACH YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE.

OK.
There are more moments that make me cringe than I originally
anticipated.
But these are things that weren’t in the job description when I
first applied for this job!
No one even mentioned the benefits package!
And when I say “benefits”, I mean vomit in your
hair.
Cleaning up errant urine off of a shower curtain.
Fishing baby turds out of the bathtub.
With a kitchen strainer.

Two words.
Play. Date.
Proof that Satan wants
us to be unhappy.

Does anyone know how often kids get sick?
BEFORE they decide to have children?
A lot.
The answer is a lot.

Now in fairness and to ease the fears
of you mothers-to-be out there, my motherhood technique can best be
described in one descriptive sentence:
I freak the crap out.
I freak the crap out when it comes to EVERYTHING.

When the power goes out?
I call ComEd within SECONDS of darkness.

Out of diapers in the middle of the night?
I may or may not have had to go into the bathroom, lock the door
and use every single curse word I have ever heard.
EVERY one.

An episode of the middle of the night pukes sends me in a tizzy of
which it might take weeks for me to recover.

My husband is a low-level threat when it comes to freakin’ the
crap out.
He has the POTENTIAL to freak the crap out but in reaction to my
freaking the crap out, he tones it down and handles what I am unable
to bear.
We are SOUL. MATES.

And secretly I think he is jealous of my freaking the crap out
abilities.

I come from a lonnnnnggg line of freak the crap out’ers.
My dad is a reformed freak the crapout’er.
My brother is what I like to call a textbook freak the crap
out’er.
Hell, my mom, who has always been cool and classy flipped my dad
the bird on the Indiana Toll Road in 1989 in reaction to my dad
driving too slow. 
And I have been waiting
25 years to work that into a sentence.

Yes I am an overreacting freak the crap out’er mom of two amazing
girls.
They are used to it.
They know how to handle me.
Walk slowly into the room, no sudden movements, just one foot in
front of the other.
Give the bad news gently.
But they know I love them fiercely.
They know that I will always be there for them.
They know I am their Mama Bear and will kick someone’s ass for
them.

Just don’t tell me that we don’t have any toilet paper.
I have been known to kill for less.