Author Archives: The Orange Rhino

Don’t yell, make Bananas Foster?

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Written November 6, Day ??? without power

And a funny story for tonight to lighten up the mood of this page.

So obviously 8 days no power is getting to me. Tonight ’round about 4:30ish as the house was starting to darken and I needed to get everything ready for dinner and bedtime while I had lights someone opened the door to the COLD cold outside and left it open. As they ALL ran around in and out screaming and laughing and having a jolly ‘ole good time. Two seconds before I went bezerk they ran in, slammed the door shut and continued calling each other po*py heads and laughin hysterically. I was so annoyed I wanted to scream, like off my charts scream. I opened my mouth, felt the tickle start in my throat and felt the roar travel up my throat. I immediately grabbed the closest thing I could and squeezed…turns out it was a week old rotten banana. SMOOSH! Wet, sticky banana smooshed through my fingers and dripped out onto the counter and floor. What a mess it was! What a mess I am. What a dork I am because immediately after the harsh realization that I am inching towards losing it (despite all my positive feelings), all I could think of was vanilla ice cream and the necessary makings for Bananas Foster dessert 🙂

When it’s dark, you can see the Stars…

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Written on Facebook November 5th, day ??? without power

What’s on my mind facebook asks? Well first I am thrilled I figured out how to post as The Orange Rhino from my phone. Yeah! And second, well, here is my second.

Tonight I went outside flashlight in hand desperately searching for #3’s winter hat. You all know him to be a tad OCD about his belongings and well, since we made him wear a hat one night to stay warm he hasn’t let it leave his head. Until today. It was bedtime and it couldn’t be found anywhere. I feared a meltdown more than anything so I trekked outside looking for said hat.

I didn’t find it. But I found something perhaps more amazing. The stars. As the fresh, cold air hit me in the face and I smelled all the fires burning I couldn’t help but stop and take it all in. It was so peaceful. Not a car rushing down the street. Not a streetlight shining. Not a kid running around. It was pure awesomeness. And then I looked up. Oh the stars. So abundant and clear and sparkling. I love seeing the stars at night and oh how I miss visiting “the country” where I can see the stars every night. You see, here in the burbs, with all the lights it is hard to see the stars. But as you know, right now, I am without light. My street is without lights. But I am not without stars.

It was (is?) Totally dark tonight and I got to see the stars. And it made me so very happy, so very calm and yet alive.

You all know that I am a cheeseball who loves inspirational quotes. Tonight’s search for the hat turned moment of peace reminded me of a favorite quote of mine from high school. Something like “only when it is dark can you see the stars.”

Well right now folks, its dark. But I am seeing stars, literally. And it is keeping me going. So I offer this story up to you in terms of this challenge (because we all know I love to bring things back to “the challenge.”) When it is dark – when you want to yell and kick and scream and lose it, look for the stars. Look for the beauty in your children. Look for love. Find it. It is there. And it will help you survive that moment. And if it doesn’t work right away, keep trying. It is like looking for constellations – it takes practice to see things a certain way. But it IS possible.

I’m off to stargaze. Again. Because looking at stars is way better than sitting in the dark. Again.

Do I want to be miserable or not?

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Written on Facebook November 4, Day 7 without power…

Hello again! I’m on night 7 of no power and I appreciate you all staying with me and sharing such supportive comments the other night. While what I am going to write right now is theoretically about my current situation it actually applies to this challenge too, and any difficult situation in life. As grateful as I am feeling, I have finally hit the wall. I spent lots of moments today feeling angry and frustrated and annoyed at the situation.

Both my husband and I are fed up and tired and I am pretty sure we are going to lose it with each other and the kids soon if we don’t see at least 1 truck working SOON. As in, like first thing tomorrow morning. But in the middle of all my silent b****ing and moaning this morning, in the middle of a moment when I really wanted to scream at my kids just because I am that on edge, I remembered something I learned at the beginning of this challenge. I have a choice. I can spend all day pissed off and yelling and feeling really miserable as I wallow in self pity OR I can choose to feel only partially miserable.

For so many years of my life I opted for the really miserable. That seemed easier and more comforting at the time. Looking back I am not sure why I ever thought that! But today, and the last 267ish days I’ve CHOSEN the better choice for me, the less miserable choice. It’s hard to make – but it does feel better. How do I make that choice? I find whatever I can to feel positive about (like unexpected family time together). Hokey I know. Again, its taken YEARS to train myself to think this way (and to admit that my mom, who has been drilling this in my head for years, was right). But it works. So that’s what I have for you tonight. Not feeling cranky is a choice. I chose it today. Not yelling is a choice. I also chose that path today, like a thousand times I think! Under the circumstances, both choices were hard as h*ll but equally rewarding as h*ll. And tomorrow morning when I wake up cold and cranky and pissed the kids again missed the memo about daylight savings (argh!) I’ll re-read this. Until then, a nice glass of wine and a fire await. Sleep well!

Hurricane Sandy – filled with emotion and gratitude

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Written on Facebook November 2nd, day 5 without power

Hello friends and shall I say family? Because in many ways you all feel like family as I have told you and trusted you with many of my deepest emotions! I tried to write today “formally” but am honestly too overwhelmed with emotion to get what’s in my mind and my heart out. So alas, as I sit here in the dark listening to the crackle of the fire and the buzzing of the generator that we were able to rent and run a few hours a night so we can keep the house at 55, I thought I would write to you all “casually.” Hi. We are holding up. I find myself wanting to cry a few times a day though, I’m not going to lie. You all know me to be emotional and this devastation certainly has brought that part of me alive. I keep asking myself why do I keep fighting back tears? Why? Is it because the house is cold, the food blah, the kids stir crazy, my routine gone? NO. I want to cry because I am so grateful. Because I am so lucky. I see trees on houses all around me. I hear sirens every 20 minutes. I see moms with week old babies waiting in line for coffee, food. I get stopped by an elderly man to get directions to the hospital because his wife, in the front seat isn’t feeling well, clearly from the cold, the stress. I, we, my family are lucky. And for that I feel so grateful, yet so guilty. Because while it is bad here and no sign of a power truck in sight, I know it is worse elsewhere. And that just breaks my heart. Do I write this to make you all feel guilty? NO. Please don’t!!! I write because it helps me process the craziness that is around me. I write because it is what I normally do and right now, I crave just a little bit of normal more than anything…(P.S. Thanks for reading and letting me emote.)

Tracking my Triggers

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260 days without yelling, 105 days of loving more to go!

Dear Hurricane Sandy,

Please blow over, no pun intended. I’ve been tracking you for days so that I can know what kind of problems you’ll bring, when to expect your wrath and what I need in order to handle the situation properly, or at least the best that I am able. All this tracking got me thinking back to the first days of this challenge when all I did was track. So while I know you are going to be a pain in my a*s the next few days I do thank you for inspiring tonight’s post and getting me to finally write it as it has been an idea lurking in my mind for months.

Cheers,
The Orange Rhino

*

The similarities to tracking a hurricane and tracking my triggers for yelling are pretty remarkable. I would track, track, track my triggers so that I could be prepared for my own storm path; so that I could know what problems would cause me to yell, when precisely I would yell, and what I needed to have in the future to be ready, mentally, in order to prevent major “storm” damage. Guess what? All the tracking? It really helped me prepare.

Yes, storms brewed in the early days. OH DID THEY EVER. I think I texted my friends five to seven times a day saying “I’m gonna lose it” and they would write back “No!! Don’t do it! You can hold it together!” But after a few days writing down all the times I yelled or wanted to yell, I saw patterns. I saw that I yelled at the same times of day. I saw that I yelled whenever I felt rushed. I saw that I yelled whenever I had my blackberry in hand, if I had just had a disagreement with my husband.

Were the findings discouraging? YES. Because there were a lot of areas of improvement and because there were a lot of findings that I never would have guessed, like how much a simple conversation about “weekend plans” with my hubby could put me in such a mood that I would yell at any child for no reason.

But just knowing the triggers, knowing that there were easy things I could now fix and yell less, like putting out snacks the night before, and knowing that there were things that I could personally CHANGE about me, well, you know what they say. Knowledge is power. This knowledge brought me clarity. It brought me a path. I don’t the technical, PhD. Study, formal rationale for why knowing a problem and labeling it makes it easier, but in this case, it did.

As I tracked more I found myself yelling less and texting my friends for support less.

Maybe it was as simple as seeing all the times I yelled on paper? Maybe that just was so ugly it really scared me and motivated me? (I know that works for me with weight loss – if I track what I eat for a week. WHOA NELLY. Suddenly I realize how bad I was and I get back on track.)

I don’t entirely know the answer for why tracking is such a powerful tool. Again, I am not a professional. I am just a mom trying to figure it all out. I don’t why tracking worked, but it did. It worked wonders – just like tracking and preparing for a Hurricane. I now know the storm is hitting tonight and I am prepared, as well as I can be. I have alcohol for after the long days (haha), I have caffeine for the long days (haha), I have canned goods, flashlights, water and more. I tracked, I got informed, and I am prepared. This storm will not take me by surprise and I am ready.

So tonight, in honor of Hurricane Sandy, I share with you my best attempt at a “professional” Trigger Tracking sheet. It is pretty close to what I wrote down and how I handle the information. I am a dork. These attachments will make that clear. But they helped me. They were integral to my figuring out how to stop yelling. Because once I looked at the “data” and could figure out a plan, I attacked each trigger one by one. And as I yelled less, I felt better. So I attacked 2 new triggers. And mastered those. And it just grew and grew and grew.

DOWNLOAD these two sheets below to see how I tracked my triggers and got on the path of not yelling!

Trigger Tracking Sheet Example (this is my best replica of what I wrote down in the beginning)

Trigger Tracking Sheet (a blank version if you want to print and try tracking yourself!)

To my Son: I won’t give up on us

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258 days without yelling, 107 days of loving more!
Friday’s Favorite Song #2 

Dear Jason,

Thanks for writing this song. Whenever I hear it, even if intended for a girlfriend or something, I think of my son, of our relationship and am reminded not only to not give up, but more powerfully of just how deep my love for my son is. Even when the skies are rough. And let me tell you, my love for my son is deep. Sure he has thrown a thing or two at me, but it isn’t every day. He has phases – some days the skies are rough but most days they are beautiful. And when those days are beautiful they are as picture perfect as a sunrise. Look what my son drew on a peaceful, spur of the moment?

“A picture of a man walking on the beach at sunset.”

 

 

 

 

 

Or how about this flower, made orange just because of my blog?

 

 

 

 

 

Or how about that his favorite color is now orange, not red?

Yes, the skies can be rough, but they can also be breathtakingly beautiful. Beyond words. Because what comes with intense (negative) emotions are also intense positive emotions, like love and lots of it. My son loves me fiercely. His heart is bigger than what I imagined a kid’s to be. He has a grasp of empathy second to none.  And that is why I won’t give up on him, on us. Our love is too strong.

So thanks for the beautiful song; it’s touched my heart in a way you cannot imagine and that is why it is my Favorite Song this Friday.

Best,
The Orange Rhino

*
“I won’t give up” 
by Jason Mraz

When I look into your eyes
It’s like watching the night sky
Or a beautiful sunrise
Well there’s so much they hold
And just like them old stars
I see that you’ve come so far (you have my son, you have)
To be right where you are
How old is your soul?

I won’t give up on us (you and me kid, we can do this)
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up

And when you’re needing your space
To do some navigating (to learn how to handle yourself, to grow)
I’ll be here patiently waiting (when you need help, I’ll be here)
To see what you find

‘Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth
We’ve got a lot to learn (together, we’ll figure this out)
God knows we’re worth it
No, I won’t give up

I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily (and I won’t)
I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make (however long it takes)
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end,
You’re still my friend at least we didn’t tend
For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I got, and what I’m not
And who I am

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up
I’m still looking up

I won’t give up on us
God knows I’m tough, he knows
We got a lot to learn
God knows we’re worth it

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up…

Not sure what Favorite Song Friday is all about? Read here: You’re not Alone 

Looking for compassion when all I feel is anger

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257 days without yelling, 108 days of loving more to go!

Dear Judgment,

Do not find my son or me after this post. Writing this was hard. I barely scratched the surface; I basically tip toed around the issues because I don’t want to write about them (too hard? too embarrassed?) and because I know you exist. I know that no matter what, you will sadly be put on my son and me. And I don’t want that, because our struggles right now are hard enough. I don’t need people thinking I am a bad parent or that he is a bad kid. Because he isn’t. He is a gift to me, to this world. He, just like all of us, has some struggles. So please go bestow yourself upon someone else, like a celebrity wearing a horrific dress.

Sincerely,
The Orange Rhino

*

I just can’t take it anymore.

I am trying so hard to be patient, to be understanding, to be loving, to be calm but I just can’t take it anymore. The defiance, the anger, the anxiety, the belligerence, the disrespect, the hitting, kicking, spitting, throwing, all the sh*t that comes with having sensory issues, all the sh*t that comes with being wonderfully emotional.

Any of it and all of it.

I can’t take another day of it.

Because it is hard, exhausting, demoralizing and heartbreaking.

I love my son, I really do. But right now, this moment, this day, this week, this MONTH I am so not in love with his behavior. Even though I understand the source of it, even though I have witnessed it all before and know that we have learned how to work through it, even though I know it isn’t intentional per say, but that it’s his way of saying “Mommy, I’m struggling and I need help” I still can’t take another day of it.

I know that my son doesn’t handle change well and that three major changes at once were an absolute attack on his system. I know that he is a perfectionist and that having to perform at school is an absolute attack on his system. I know that having three loud brothers running around him, testing his sensory issues, is a constant attack on his system. I know that mommy getting more and more frustrated with him is an attack on his system.

I know that in order to help him I need to not yell, to not raise my voice, to not hit him.

I know I need to show no response, positive or negative, that I just need to remain completely calm as he punches me in the face (accidentally or not). That I need to remain calm as he throws a scooter at me. That I need to remain calm as he says to me “I hate you so much I want to shoot you” or “I’m so angry I want to scratch my face until it bleeds.”

Yes, I know I need to remain calm, but right now, honestly, all I want to do is punch him back, throw the scooter back, scream at him “I HATE IT WHEN YOU ARE LIKE THIS!”

I hate when I can’t help you without worry of being hurt.
I hate when you scare me with your words, with your pain.
I hate that you are struggling so much and clearly want to stop the madness, but can’t.
I hate that no other parent seems to have a child like this, that I feel completely alone.
I hate that I am embarrassed by your behavior because people don’t understand you, us.
I hate that I understand your behavior because I have the same struggles.
I hate that I taught you to throw when angry, to yell nastily when angry.

I hate it all so much.

And yet I love you so much.

And that is what I hate the most.

Because right now, all I want do is find compassion and love and instead all I am finding is anger. Lots and lots of anger. And it is spilling into every aspect of my life. I am shorter and shorter with not just you, but your brothers. I am eating and eating and eating, trying to suffocate the anger which just makes me feel worse. And oh am I closer and closer to doing something a lot worse than yelling, something I would regret for the rest of my life (hitting him, that is).

I want to just grab my son in my arms and rock him like a baby. I want to just cry with him, to tell him that it will get easier, that the need to do something right the first time will ease up, that all the noise will soften, that the inability to stop a sensory attack once it starts will get easier.

But I can’t.

Because I am thirty something and I am still figuring it all out.

I can’t cry with my son and comfort him because I don’t know what to tell him except that I can’t take another day of it.

“It” being seeing him in pain and feeling such anger towards him.

I love him too much to have such anger towards him.

So today I will find compassion, no matter how hard I have to look for it because that is what he needs right now. I will stop judging him, his behavior, and start focusing on the wonderfully emotional and loving kid that he is. I will tell him that I will endure as many hard moments and hard days and hard months with him as I need to because I love him. And I will cry with him too and tell him it will get better, that as hard as it is I won’t give up on him, on us.

Tomorrow is Favorite Song Friday and the song I will share is a beautiful complement to this post and appropriately so will be dedicated to my son. Check back tomorrow for it! And thank you for not judging. 

How the Mommy Witch Stole Halloween

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256 days without yelling, 109 days of loving more to go

Dear Dr. Seuss…thanks for the inspiration!
~ The Orange Rhino

*

Every boy in OrangeRhino-ville liked Halloween a lot…
but their Mommy, a witch in October, did NOT!
Oh, their mommy hated Halloween! The whole Halloween season!
From the first costume catalog received to the last candy eaten!

She kept her boys from having any Halloween fun,
no she didn’t let them put up any decorations, not even one!
Please, mommy, a spider, a tombstone or maybe a ghost?
No she replied, how about pretty mums, at the most?

The kids tried to cheer her, encourage her, get her in the mood,
but sadly nothing seemed to change her oh-so-grinchy attitude.
Not even a “mommy, be an Orange Rhino, that’d be the coolest costume ever seen!”
could stop her from being hell bent on stealing the spirit of Halloween.

The mommy Witch usually had a big heart and loved all holidays,
but Halloween, no, that one simply filled her with dismay.
Was it the constant fighting over the catalogs to decide who to be,
or the constant “please can I be this super violent, totally tacky, ugly person, mommy?”

She liked to blame the time of the year for all her disdain,
claiming 4 birthday parties back to back drove her insane.
No more planning, extra excitement, or meltdowns galore,
No! I just need a break from extras, I can’t handle any more!

Adding to her misery was the one thing she didn’t know,
how to create a costume from scratch and then sew!
Her mother had made the best costumes on earth,
and now having to buy them only made this Witch question her worth!

What kind of mom am I that shops for costumes online?
And who always has to pay extra shipping to get them in time?
And what kind of mom tries to control what her kids wear?
Don’t I know before the photo opp the costumes will just tear?

Yes, this mommy Witch in OrangeRhino-ville was laden with all sorts of stress,
because even though her boys cared, she could care LESS.
As hard as she tried she couldn’t make Halloween hide,
so she was stuck, b*tching and moaning, as she went along for the ride.

Wizard of Oz theme 2010. I was Dorothy. It was beyond adorable.

 

 

To ease her suffering she tried to make them all dress in a theme,
but no, they were getting too old, they certainly didn’t want to look like a team!
Her visions of cuteness she simply had to let go,
it was time to accept that her boys were truly starting to grow.

 

 

 

Ah, the guilt, the fights, the silliness, the stress that came with Halloween,
they made this witch from OrangeRhino-ville mean, mean, mean!
Then one day she flew on her broomstick into Party City
where she saw a young boy and immediately took pity.

He was in a pile of tears on the floor, Star Wars costume clutched in his hand.
“NO you can’t be that!” the Witch heard the mom demand.
“But mommy I love it, I don’t care if there is no laser!”
“I don’t like it, it’s tacky” I said no way-ser!

Oh that is me, such an ugly, horrible site!
Thought the mommy Witch to herself as she shut her eyes tight.
A tear or two, or maybe even three, dripped down her face
as her heart filled with nothing but disgrace.

She tried to run but heard another discouraging chat,
“No you can’t be a Ninja, I simply don’t like that!”
“But mommy, it’s my costume, my turn to choose who I want to be,
You can’t always control me, let me be ME!”

The words stung for they were so incredibly true,
and at that moment the Witch knew just what to do.
She flew to the clerk and asked for three costumes to take:
a Dragon, a Transformer, and a Pirate named Jake.

Tacky costumes in hand she flew to the next aisle,
and grabbed decorations she knew would make her boys smile.
Some spider’s web, a skeleton and a flying, howling ghost,
she finally remembered the one thing about Halloween that she loved most.

It certainly wasn’t the carving of pumpkins or the Reese Peanut Butter cups in the bag,
and no it definitely wasn’t the costumes hanging pathetically still showing their tags.
It was greater, it was better. It was watching the costumes fill out,
as her sons jumped in them with joy and danced all about.

Yes, every time the costumes came to life
the Mommy Witch forgot about all her silly, silly Halloween strife.
She saw the joy in her sons’ eyes as they practiced saying boo,
and her love for her boys, just grew and grew and grew.

 

Our oldest at 3 weeks old. My husband’s brilliant idea. See? I am not the only one who looks for a photo opp!

www.facebook.com/TheOrangeRhino 

Changing our Family Tree

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255 days without yelling, 110 days of loving more to go!

Dear Leaves,

I love you because I love watching you change to brilliant colors, I love racing to catch you falling from the sky, I love kicking you up in the air and giggling as you fall on me. Yes leaves, I love you and I love the fall. You make me feel like a kid all over. But more so, you make me STOP and enjoy the moment. Well this guest post by Jessica, also about a tree (albeit a different one) had a similar impact. It made me STOP and think about what I am teaching my kids. It made me stop and enjoy the moment – because it really was a quite thoughtful post. So thanks to both of you!

The Orange Rhino

To all readers, enjoy. And remember, share some love with our guest blogger. It takes courage to share!

*

Changing our Family Tree by Jessica Smith
www.longestdays.com

Oftentimes as parents we overhear our kids in their conversations and play and think to ourselves, “Ah, how cute.  They sound just like me.”  The other day that happened, but my response was not, “How cute”, but “Crap!  Rebecca sounds just like me.”

It started because she was irritated with her brother and sister.  She is 8 to their 4 and 2.  Most of the time they all get along, but as she gets older and they get into her things more and more her tolerance level for them has decreased.

Her books are HER books.  Her toys are HER toys.  Her hair accessories are HER hair accessories.  There is no room for sharing because she doesn’t want the younger two to break her older girl things.  Which I get, she is older and owns things that the smaller two just aren’t ready for.  What I don’t like is how she talks to them about it.

So the other day, I heard her with her teeth grinding together mutter, “Don’t touch my stuff.”  She said it as calm as possible but with as much malice as her 8 year old self could muster.  She was angry but trying not to sound angry.  Just. Like. Me.

I don’t mind when the kids emulate my good habits.  But when I hear them doing something that I don’t like about myself I cringe.  I feel terrible and guilty that I have been teaching them the wrong way to act.  That is when I realize how important it is for me to continue changing how I interact with the kids.

I have been in the process of becoming a less angry and therefore a less yelling parent over the past 3 ½ years.  I went into therapy because I didn’t like how I was handling my young kids.  I found myself really angry and short with them constantly and scaring them sometimes with my anger.  So I have worked through the things that trigger that anger and I have learned how to handle myself when I do find anger bubbling to the surface.

I know it is unrealistic for me to never yell ( agreed!), and I applaud the Orange Rhino for her efforts in NEVER yelling.  But I don’t need to make myself feel any guiltier than I already do for my parenting failures (agreed!), so when I find myself yelling I apologize.  Always.   Everytime.  Without fail.  Even if the kids deserved to be yelled at, I still apologize.  I am trying to separate my anger from their behavior.  I want them to see that while it is not OK to yell, if you do, there is always the grace to do better.

That is how I get through these challenging parenting years.  I know I am going to yell.  I know I am going to feel guilty for yelling, and I know how my yelling affects the kids.  Through my changes to my personal life, the kids are in turn learning how to handle that anger instead of bottling it up inside and then having it explode when they can’t keep it in any longer.  This is something I couldn’t do when I became a parent.

So, after the incident with Rebecca, my first response was to yell at her.  I stopped myself, called her over and asked what she was feeling and how she thought she could have handled it differently.  I got the typical responses like, “They shouldn’t touch my stuff.”  But it was a good opportunity to discuss what we CAN do when we are frustrated and what to do when we yell instead of working through the problem.

Things are changing in our house.  For every bad trait I hear replayed by my kids I will hear awesome ones like, “I am sorry for yelling (or hitting, scratching, etc.)  These will often come unprovoked by me and that makes me feel like the work I have been doing for myself is trickling down and changing our family tree.

I encourage all of you parents out there who feel guilty about the yelling to just start showing your kids how grace works.  That we mess up as parents, but we can always ask for forgiveness and understanding.  Then just take a step back and see how that seed grows in your kids’ lives.

What P.M.S really stands for

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254 days without yelling, 111 days of loving more to go!

Dear T.M.I.,

Did I just cross the line with this post? What can I say. It’s that time of month. I have P.M.S. big time and it takes over my ability to think rationally.

Not sincerely (because I don’t feel sincere or nice when I am suffering from P.M.S. I just feel grouchy and mean),

The Orange Rhino

P.S. My apologies in advance to male readers. I am not trying to offend you. Really.  

*

I remember being thirteen and seeing a button in Claire’s, the be all and end all of stores for teenage girls. The button read:

P.M.S. Putting up with Men’s Shit

I remember giggling and calling my girlfriends over from the tacky jewelry section to see the pearl of wisdom that I had found. Because you know at 13, after a mere few months of being in the womanhood club, not only was I cool enough to make jokes about PMS but I was cool enough to make jokes about boys being annoying. Because I understood them both perfectly. PMS and boys that is.

Fast forward 22 years. I am much wiser. Now I really understand both.

1)      P.M.S. only happens once a month, not weekly or daily, so it definitely does not stand for Putting up with Men’s Shit.

2)       P.M.S. actually means Pushing Me to Scream. Scientists and doctors and other professionals like to call it Pre-menstrual Syndrome. But that is too weak of a name. Pre-menstrual syndrome is too delicate, too polite, too nice. It doesn’t get at the heart of the matter, the intensity of what really happens to a woman during that blessed week each month.

Because, yes, 1 time a month, P.M.S makes me want to scream. The other three weeks a month I just want to yell. But that one lucky week a month when I am blessed with P.M.S I don’t want to just yell, I want to scream, scream, scream. Three weeks a month I have to work hard to not yell. But when I have PMS?

Oh. My. God.

I don’t think “working hard” begins to even describe my plight.

I have to practically hide from my kids to keep from yelling because every word sounds like a whine which this time of month sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I “have to eat” to keep my mouth full of Oreo cookies, Tostitos, Cheez-its and other crap just so that I can’t yell.

I have to constantly put my head in the freezer to put the hot flashes at bay, to keep my temper cool.

I have to wear extra loose clothes so that the feeling of tight pants, tight shirts, and a tight bra don’t drive me batty and put me on edge.

I have to do jumping jacks what feels like every friggin’ second to keep my aggression in check.

I have to go to bed way earlier than I like because my normal exhaustion coupled with my P.M.S exhaustion leaves me a wretched, crotchety person.

UGH. Like I said, P.M.S. makes me want to scream, literally and figuratively.

I love that 22 years ago I thought I totally got P.M.S. HA! If only I knew what a horrific pain in the arse it was I wouldn’t have been making jokes about it; I’d be figuring out how to get rid of it.

I still don’t have the answers that work for me (in regards to P.M.S. or to Men) but I do know this. When I finally started circling on my calendar on the days I was at my worst, the days where I practically screamed, that days where my tolerance was negative, the days where I snapped way more than I liked, I realized that my worst days were always P.M.S days.

I kind of never thought of P.M.S as a trigger. I never really took P.M.S. seriously until recently. I don’t know why. Maybe because it has been a part of my life for so long that I have kind of accepted it? Maybe I thought I handled it better than I actually do? Maybe because my 4th pregnancy played with my system enough that it made P.M.S. come alive more ferociously? Maybe because I didn’t want to admit that this trigger would be with me for years and years on end?

But oh, oh is it ever a trigger (professionals even say so, which “kind of” makes me feel better). And these last few days? I totally blame PMS. The good news? Figuring out and acknowledging that my PMS week is going to be a hard week has helped. Because I start the week mentally prepared for extra challenge, prepared that I am going to have to work harder and somehow that makes it easier. Not manageable, but easier.

Now if only I could figure out how to not stuff my face when P.M.S.ing (she writes as she reaches for more M&M’s).

How do you handle P.M.S.? Please share all secrets!! Does laughter do it? This worked momentarily for me. Check out this video. It’s brilliant.