Opening a can....

I often refer to my life experiences as "before meds" and "after meds".  Before meds my poor family never knew what to expect from me.  Never knew if I was going to blow a stack over nothing.  I was crazy about keeping the house spotless.  I had a set schedule for everything.  I was super organized.

Now, I can be relied upon to be even keeled:  not going to blow a stack over much.  In fact I find that blowing a stack takes up waaay too much energy and isn't really worth it.  House is clean but not always orderly.  I have a calendar that I try to stick to but if it doesn't work out I can always do it tomorrow or next week.  Not too organized either.

One thing I do better though is I don't procrastinate as much.  I just get right down to business.

I used to go off on people in public from time to time.  I'd get right in people's faces if I felt an injustice was being carried out.

One day about 10 years ago, my oldest was in 2nd grade and I still had three kids at home during the daytime.  Sometimes I'd get bored especially in the winter and I'd brave a trip to the store.  This particular day we journeyed to the Target which was in a neighboring town about 20 minutes away from our house.

At about 2:00pm I looked at my watch and realized that I had to pick up my oldest from school in 15 minutes.  Luckily, I wasn't buying anything from Target that day, just wasting time.  So I zoomed out of the store to my white Dodge Caravan and started to get the kids into the car.  My oldest daughter who was 5 at the time got herself into her car seat and the baby was in an infant carrier so I clicked him in, easy enough.  My younger daughter at the time was 3 and had and always WILL have a mind of her own.  She decided to start doing the wet noodle:  you put kid in car seat, they go limp and slide out, you put kid in the car seat, they go limp and slide out, etc. etc.  If you've ever had a 3 year old you know what I'm talking about.

During this time I was actually trying to be patient and not yell but saying things like, "Come on, M---, work with me here!"  and "Throw me a bone, kid!"  Stuff like that.  No threats, no swearing, no hitting, just tired mom exasperation.  Finally, I threw an elbow into her crotch to hold her in while I buckled her down.

I backed out of the van, closed the door and turned around to take my cart to the cart corral (which I always do) and I hear to my left, "Reowr..."  You know, like a cat sound.  I stopped the cart, backed up and said to a lady in the car next to me, "Was that noise directed at me?"  Now keep in mind I'm "in a hurry".

She said something like, "Well.  You don't have to be so mean to your kids."  I said, "What are you talking about?"  She said, "You don't have to yell at them.  Maybe if you were a better mother they would obey you better."  And on and on and on like that.  I, of course, kept going right back at her and in so doing became so angry that my milk dropped down (I exclusively breastfed).  So I'm holding my forearms over my boobs to get the milk to stop, having words with this woman who would NOT SHUT UP, with the thought in the back of my mind that I'm late picking up my son and I will never be on time now when I'd finally had it.

I put my face into her car and yelled, "Lady?!  If you don't shut up I'm gonna haul you outta that car and I'm gonna KICK YOUR ASS!!"

She shut up.

I put my cart in the cart corral, got into the van, leaned over the passenger seat, rolled down the window and screamed, "At least I know who my kids' father is!"  And I drove off cackling.  Milk running down my belly.

I was so proud of myself.  I called my husband who had just started a private practice to tell him all about it.  This is what he said, "*sigh* Honey, it does me no good to be in the public eye if I'm hauling you out of the pokey."

Party pooper.