Do you become the parent who tries pleading. Please “so and so” do it for Mommy. Scrape yourself off the nasty floor that you are spreading your body across, swallow those gobs of tears and just deal with the fact that I’m not allowing you to have chips when you did not eat your dinner.

Or do you become the parent that is above it all. Just go about your business, pretend like there is not a scene from Terminator going on right before your eyes. I’m sure all the other onlookers will appreciate the fact that you can so easily tune out the screaming flailing child.

Or do you find yourself becoming the parent that we read about in storybooks. That parent that has no problem removing that child even if it means not finishing your meal, leaving your cart without making those purchases or ending a family outing abruptly. And even if you can muster up the strength to make that bold move – how do you handle those other children whose meals are incomplete, whose soccer team snack is in that cart or whose been waiting all day to have their face painted?

I’m developing a story book, rather a horror non-fiction novel, of temper tantrums. It may even come complete with illustrations, although not appropriate for those with a faint heart. The only thing that rivals the beasts that my children become in a temper tantrum is the beast I become in dealing with it. In my time – I have held the door of their rooms shut while they pull with all their might, I have left a child in the car while they screamed it out and I hid on the outside waiting, and I have carried my fair share of kiddos out of the environment.

Tonight I looked at my blissful five month old. He was smiling and giggling and providing me with such joy. I looked into those beautiful baby blues and I just knew that at some point he too will turn into one of those split personality beasts. I started to shake a little bit…

Over the weekend Adam participated in “Tough Mudder.” He spent money, woke up insanely early and put himself through hours of grueling torture. If he wanted a “day off,” I can think of far nicer ways to spend it! What I did learn, though, is that it’s near impossible to manage our life as a single parent. Between t-ball, birthday parties and naps, life is a two partner sport. Fortunately for me, my mom swooped in with her cape and saved the day!

It’s kinda like the three kid phenomenon. Why did G-d only give us two hands? Is it because we were never supposed to have more than two kids? Is it because you shouldn’t have a third until your oldest can handle NOT holding your hand? Well, either way I failed to listen and practically have a panic attack at the sheer thought of taking three kids out of a car in a parking lot.

Sometimes I find my head moving so fast to the next circumstance, the next game plan that I overlook something in the current place I’m at. Surely having three kids and managing a parking lot circumstance is no exception to that, nor is the fact that in T minus 21 days I will pretty much NEVER see my husband Monday through Friday. So I’m lining up camp, enrichment and even, dare I say, “considering” giving up nursing for the shear basis that I literally can’t handle everything in my life right now.

As the days get closer, I’m appreciating lunch visits more. When he comes home after a long day of abuse, I’m quickly putting him to work. At the same time though, I’m also trying to pull back. I’m trying to take the lead in the morning (or at least considering what the lead might be like) in getting these kids ready and out of the house. I’m starting night time rituals of laying out clothes, setting up expectations and working our incentive chart to the bone!

I’m sure there will be some major aches and pains along the way. I think most of them I’ll survive, not necessarily happily but survive. Honestly, though, the biggest one is that I will miss that guy so much

What is sexuality? Is it large breasts and curves? That certainly helps paint the picture. I definitely feel at my sexiest dressed up in a nice dress that hugs all the right parts, a pretty pair of shoes probably too high to be comfortable, and my hair and makeup done just right. Can one feel sexy without their original sexy parts?

Some men say they are butt guys or boob guys. Really what most men want is a confident girl. Someone who can put on the dress, even if it doesn’t hug the best parts, and hold their head high. Someone who can wear a pair of flats and own it. And a woman who doesn’t wear any makeup could sometimes turn the right guy on just by being their own natural beautiful self.

Angelina has become a successful franchise as Lara Croft, tomb raiding, ass kicking girl wonder. In most ways she doesn’t need her boobs to be the bad ass that she is, she needs her inner strength and outward confidence. But can she sell it? Can she sell her franchise as a beautiful, fashion forward girl with tons of sex appeal?

Standing in front of news reporters, critics far and wide, she fessed up to the most intimate surgery as an example for every woman who has struggled with the decision to have this surgery, every woman who has had the surgery and every woman who will have to have the surgery in the future. I commend Jolie for bringing this surgery and this struggle to the forefront. If you ask me, she’s never been sexier…except maybe when she stole Brad Pitt from Jennifer Aniston

That just started my years upon years of employment. I have worked on a pretty regular basis for sixteen plus years. Retiring or quitting from being a pharmaceutical rep was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. Almost two years later, I’m completely convinced I made the right decision.

I have decided, however, this is the hardest job I have ever had. This whole parenting thing comes with no training, to reference manual to refer to and no guidance from a supervisor in times that you get yourself in a jam. I also find myself under payed, under valued and I work WAY too many hours.

Having my mom around in recent months has given me a little validation. When she looks at me and says that she doesn’t know how I do it, it makes me feel a little compassion for what I go through. I had hopes that Mother’s Day would be the day where my children rallied together, put on costumes where they pretended to be well-behaved and cooperative young lads, and really experience a day of gratitude but I realize now how ridiculous that was of me.

This is the job I always dreamt of – in some ways I always knew it, in some ways I wished for it and in some ways (I recognize now) I had no idea what I was even talking about. Now that I’m here, now that I’m working myself to the bone, I can see that this is my most favorite job. And in some ways all my jobs prior prepared me for this colossal job I am tackling. I used to feel stressed when all my tables at Chili’s (as a waitress) needed something at the same time. I had no idea what that really was like until I now have three kids with three needs at the exact same time. I used to think driving around all day visiting doctors and bringing lunch made for a chaotic day of shlepping. Now I KNOW that was a vacation compared to getting three kids in and out of the car for their variety of activities.

The thing I miss the most though, not the days off (although I miss that), not the bonus money (which I definitely miss too), is the chance to have my boss tell me I’m doing a measurable good job which is obvious due to x, y and z. I want someone to pat me on the back and say, look at this…evidence of a job well done. Maybe some day when they are graduating college, gainfully employed and married with children I will get that. Then again, probably not.

Adam is leaving his employment of seventeen years! He was contacted by a recruiter through LinkedIn without any solicitation on his part. Pretty immediately he ruled out any prospects of this working but was continually persuaded to see the process through. As it became more of a reality, it became more and more confusing.

I’m extremely excited for him that he will have this opportunity to work towards a new challenge that he is sincerely excited about. However, I need to bring it back to ME and say that I’m very sad that he will no longer be five minutes from home. Not only will he not be five minutes from home, rather he will be closer to an hour and a half from home in a neighboring STATE!!!! WHAT?!?!

That one maybe two mornings of hell I spend wrestling my three children into the car, are now going to be an every day reality. Those one maybe two evenings where I need to juggle three kids while making dinner, are now going to be another every day reality. Those times that I need Adam to meet a contractor or something at the house during lunchtime, are not EVER going to happen again. Seeing his face poke in mid-day for lunch will NEVER happen.

I’m barely skating through life with our current existence, let alone how life will evolve to allow for an hour and a half commute each way! And every time my brain goes to that scary place of how I could possibly handle life like this, I fight it all back. People less smart, less capable than me have been able to pull off this job while their husband works long hours. I have no choice but to survive.

I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride for my husband. He has worked so hard over the years, completed an undergraduate degree and MBA while working full time, and is one of the smartest, most dynamic guys I know. It is such an honor that this company looked far and wide for a person to fill this role and feel that Adam is their guy. I can’t blame them for wanting him, and I certainly can’t blame him for wanting more for our family.

The good news is that I expect to have him home the next snow day…I only have to wait at least nine months for one of those.

I sometimes wonder when other people post adorable pictures of this nature…is that what their day/their experience is reflecting. If I didn’t blog, all the onlookers would see pictures like this one and think I have the sweetest, loving little family. Rather, I take this medium as an opportunity to vent ALL my many frustrations with my kids and leave my readers thinking that I have horrible kids. Truthfully everything is probably somewhere in the middle. My kids CAN be sweet and loving but they also can be monsters that drive me insane. I just wonder if all the other mothers that are happily posting their pictures with their kids on Mother’s Day feel as conflicted as I do at times.

Mother’s Day started with breakfast at school on Friday. My kids were wound up crazy people from the moment my ittiest of piggies set foot on the premises. I pulled them into a bathroom for a pep talk on how they were going to calm down and we were going to have a nice time if, so help me, it killed us! It was all down hill from there. Perhaps I should have ignored their craziness and it would have muted. Perhaps I need to just accept that my children resemble wild beasts in some desolate rain forest even if it means judgement eyes from those around. Instead I thought I was setting us up for success by laying out the expectations and it all went awry anyway. I left the school early with Drew upset and Gabby under my arm thrashing, clawing, biting and screaming. Ahhhh the joys of Mother’s Day.

Actual Mother’s Day consisted of tears, quite a few of my own, arguments and harassment. When my kids marched in to give me the cutest, sweetest present (thank you Adam for being so nice and considerate), there was a solid two seconds of them spending their energy loving me but then five minutes of them fighting.

Yes, there were minutes where they were nicely playing at my in-laws and not reeking havoc. But there were also two back-to-back tantrums that left me energy-less and depressed.

The only person I have to blame is myself. Did I expect them NOT to act like toddlers/young kids?!? Did I expect them NOT to have the same struggles they have each and every day?!? Why did I think this day would be any different? The part that hurt me the most was that all these “friends” on FB were posting pictures of lovely days spent enjoying their children. When do I get to do that? Or how do I get to a place where I can focus on the two seconds they were being sweet and ignore the five minutes they were not?

I’m finding that I’m spending monumental time in their lives upset with them, upset with myself and ruining things we do together. I can’t seem to get THEM to change, so somehow I need to find the strength in myself to change. I need to stop looking at pictures of people who have families and lives I know nothing about and wanting my life to look like the pictures we all post. But maybe that’s just it…we post these images but we are struggling with the same thing? I hope so, because I certainly would feel like less of a failure…

When my thoughts of quitting my job came into play, I kept obsessing over the fact that I only have the first five years of their lives. The first five years are when they only want/need you. After that they are involved in their activities, their friends, school work and you can’t have the time with them like you can in their first five.

I missed out in the first three years with Drew. He spent his beginning days in full day daycare, shuffled between grandparents and my exposure was restricted to night time and weekends. So the fact that I’m sending him off to kindergarten is bittersweet.

The truth of the matter is that he will only be gone two and a half hours a day, even if it does have a fancier title than preschool. The truth of the matter is that he will be gone in the afternoons, most likely, when he usually spends too much time in front of the tv or iPad. The truth of the matter is that this is just the beginning of his real academic life. A life where he will ultimately spend a ton of hours in a building developing a life that is completely separate from me.

I’m not all that unfamiliar with sending him off, so I don’t expect it to be too rough. But I can’t help but feel a little sad that we are at this juncture so very soon. I can’t help but feel a little excited of the prospect of free school (well free isn’t exactly right since we pay a boatload in taxes). I can’t help but feel a little happy about submerging our life in our community since we currently spend our preschool days in a neighboring town.

As we get “rounded up” for kindergarten, I will feel nervous and excited. I will channel that through butterflies in my stomach walking through the doors, a few tears dropping him off on the first day and maybe some clammy palms when I meet his teacher. I just hope that Drew is able to channel his nerves in a constructive, normal fashion like me. And that’s really what I’m sweating…

What could my angelic child possibly have done to warrant a rating of red?!?! How could my cooperative, compliant child receive anything but the greatest report from his teachers?! There MUST have been a misunderstanding. Was Drew so dedicated to washing his hands after playing outside that he didn’t hear the teacher request his presence at the table? Is it possible that Drew was so attentive to a fellow classmates’ struggle with an art project that he aided the classmate rather than clean up? Perhaps he was participating so much in music that he didn’t realize he over articulated the movement and slightly touched a fellow classmate? I’m sure there is some obvious rationale for this alleged red incident.

When I demanded (quietly asked what happened yesterday, tear tear) an explanation, the teacher said she was glad I came in. I started to shake, WHAT NOW?!?! Believe it or not, there was not ONE incident. He didn’t listen all day, pushed every button he knew and was repeatedly disobedient.

It was as if church bells in the far off distant starting chiming. I felt my muscles throb with strength and a slight smile came on my face. That’s it? Welcome to my world, lady. That’s what I call a good day with him!

It’s not that I want him to be bad, or red, at school. It’s not that I want them to experience the struggles I go through with him. It’s just that it was vindicating. So frequently (only this school year) I feel like they are talking about a child I don’t even know. And I’m jealous, I want him to come home all attentive and cooperative. So if trained professionals say that there are days that they just can’t handle him…I guess my feelings are justified.

The good news is that today he had “green” behavior. Hopefully he will continue to have good days at school, I really only want that for him. But…it was a little reassuring to know that he’s not always easy

Noah is nearing five months and I am still going strong. I’ve actually gotten myself in a very nice rhythm where I’m minimally put out by it and find that supplementing has helped my quality of life on so many levels. It’s easier to separate from him knowing that he can always have some formula if I don’t have enough back up breast milk. I don’t find that I am suckered into following his schedule exactly because I can pump when it’s convenient for me and just give him a bottle when it’s convenient for him. All in all, it’s working for me and I’m so glad for that.

Why am I so stubbornly sticking with nursing? Is it because I feel like breast is best? Is it because I don’t trust scientists in a lab to put together a suitable concoction for my newborn? No. Obviously not, he’s getting his fair share of formula these days. And I do believe that formula can provide babies with suitable nourishment even if breast milk is ideal.

Is it because I love burning the extra calories? I used to think that was a nice added bonus with nursing and that propelled me in the beginning with Drew to try and make the most of it. I find that I eat way more and my body is holding onto some extra pounds which I am attributing to nursing (clearly not my insatiable appetite for all the wrong things).

Am I still nursing because I find the bonding session so special? Although I know many people feel that way, it has always been a little weird to me that I have to put my boob in my child’s mouth to feel a certain bonding with them. In some ways I feel closer to him with the bottle because I can adjust him so I can see him more clearly and watch his little fingers surround the bottle.

I can’t help but feel two strong feelings when I think about giving up nursing. One is because I’m a mental case, even though I know I’m not the first to struggle with this, and feel that I somehow will have failed. Not necessarily failed Noah but failed myself. I wanted to accomplish a year of nursing and for heavens sake I will! It’s like when I set my mind to running an 8K less than 43 minutes, I wasn’t going to be happy unless I reached that goal. At least this time there is some benefit for my child out of the deal but talk about competition in its finest.

And the other feeling, the one that I’m going to focus on, is that this is my last baby. Once I am done nursing him, I am done. This phase, this experience will never happen again. I can’t help but feel a little claustrophobic that once I finish I can never go back. So I’m gonna hold on a little longer.

In order for a given day to run smoothly, I must rally the troops, take inventory on what the upcoming days schedule entails, and pass out assignments. There isn’t a day where someone doesn’t have to be shuffled one place while another shuffled in a different direction. I’m pretty much an airplane control center waving flags to dictate which terminal the planes land while simultaneously landing the planes…hmmmm it’s a good thing that analogy isn’t literal.

Then I also become Mario (you know from Super Mario Brothers) who has to jump over those little turtle things, flaming balls and other crawling enemies. Here’s a little poop explosion, followed up by the Blackhawks losing (i.e. HYSTERIA), naptime gone awry (i.e. more HYSTERIA), concluding with some pink eye. Just an average Sunday in my life! It’s no wonder that I hit the bed so very hard at night, all that jumping is enough to wear anyone out!

You mean to tell me that those angels you post pictures of ALL THE TIME are the reason for your stress?!? The doctor, while running an hour behind schedule, told me I wasted my time coming in. I experienced one of the most annoyingly circular conversations with the dry cleaner. I had the opportunity to fight with the basement contractor. And I forgot to bring our wonderful preschool teachers’ flowers on teacher appreciation day. No, my maniacal kids aren’t the ONLY reason.

So yes doc, I am stressed! I make a Wall Street trader look calm! What’s your point?!?! I wouldn’t get so sick if I calmed down??? Try a day in my life and you tell me HOW that is possible. You tell me HOW to NOT lose your cool at a dinner with a baby screaming, a toddler having a temper tantrum and an almost five year old jumping from chair to chair. I dare you…