Mommy Snaps

Do you know how hard it is to live with 4 boys?  Like.....it's not pretty.  Boys are gross, and think gross things are funny.  They fart and burp at the dinner table, laughing at each other.....they bite their nails and leave them wherever they want or put them in my plants.  They pee all over the toilet/toilet seat/bathroom floor and whatever else may be handy (yes, we've had incidents with garbage cans and baby tubs).  But so far, we don't have the hormones.  Now lets turn the tables......do you know how hard it is to live with 1 incredibly hormonal red headed Aries?  Yeah.  So I guess the road really does run both ways.  I'm going to paint you a picture....it's not a pretty one.  It's like those paintings where everything is all just like....smeared together in the most garish colours and they're all deep and meaningful but you think your toy poodle could shit on a canvas and make nicer art?  Yeah, that's the kind.  This happened a bit ago.......it was one of "those" mornings at my house.  Oh yes, duhn duhn duuuuuuuhhhnnnnn!!!!  The baby hadn't been sleeping well and we hadn't had a full nights sleep in a long time.  He was miserable and so were we.  The boys had all been sick with horrendous colds and up coughing and crying all night for a week.  Barry and I were tired and grumpy.  Enter......PMS!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now, that alone should be enough to have you running for the hills screaming and crying....but this particular morning, Barry hadn't figured that detail out yet.  I was trying to make lunches before school.  We were running TOTALLY late and of course out of "lunch snacks" because the little jerks sit around and eat them all day after school.  I was busy making baggies of "trail mix" out of left over ground up bits of cereal, old nuts from Christmas and an old bag of spitz sunflower seeds I'd found on the top of the fridge (camping '05 possibly?).....the boys were of course fighting and not brushing their teeth like I was screaming at them    politely asking them too.....Lenny was hanging onto my leg crying and wiping snot everywhere.  I was raging pms, fighting a cold and a time bomb waiting to go off.....see, but that's the other thing with boys.  Sometimes they are a little slow to pick up on things like raging pms....until it's toooooo late.  Barry can sense somethings wrong, but not sure quite what and he decides to be a funny jokester and that'll make things better!  Wrong Barry.  Wrong.  He grabs me in a huge bear hug, squeezing me hard.  I also had worked myself too hard at the gym and that in combination with sleeping with my head on the nightstand (baby in bed) had made my shoulders all crooked.  "OW that hurts!" I yell out....i'm on the verge of tears and want to be living by myself in the mountains somewhere at that moment.  Barry thinks this is funny "whyyy does that hurt??" squeezing harder.  I'm trying to pull away but he thinks that's funny too.....somehow his "morning person" personality is making him blind to the death rays I'm putting out....he's just assuming it's the non "morning person" in me that's speaking.  Oh wrong again Barry.  I finally wrench back enough that he can see my face....I'm full out crying....he's totally shocked and I scream at him "I'M TIRED AND HAVEN'T SLEPT AND MY SHOULDER HURTS AND......AND.........AND I HAVE A COLD!!!!!!!"

*silence*

The whole room is silent.  Barry does the smartest thing he's done all morning and just slowly, carefully lets me go and backs away without taking his eyes off me or making any sudden movements.......right out the front door and down the steps where he gets in the van and gets the heck out of there....no goodbye, no kiss.  I stand in the middle of the room sobbing while my darling children quickly hustle to get their stuff on and get out to the bus....finally.  Even the baby toddles off to nicely watch a show and everyone leaves me to stand in the room, fight the pms demons and feel like an asshole.

So there you have it.  What would you rather?  4 boys and all that goes with that?  Or 1 redhead with pms and a slight imbalance to begin with?  All these blogs, all my woe is me I have too many males in my life moments and it comes down to this......boys, I'm sorry.  But you're stuck with me.  And I'm the Queen of this castle so put that toilet seat down and pick up your socks or next month, and the month after that, and the month after that, we could play that game again.  You have been warned.