Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Much of Saturday was spent in an ongoing cycle of "he said that I have the worst memory," "he called me stupid," "he stepped on my foot," "he's annoying me" and on and on and on. The only respite from the constant stream of fights and telling on each other was when I sat between the two kids during Monsters vs. Aliens 3D. Instead, I had to fight my anxiety over Son #1's constant flow of verbal beeping throughout the movie which I'm convinced is Tourette's given that he also has a million other ticks that go along with it. We'll leave that diagnosis to the professionals. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Yesterday in church, the two kids were fighting over who got to snuggle with me and pushing each other off my lap. Son #1 cleared his throat approximately 700 times. When church ended and I was in the Fellowship Hall having (rather attempting to have) a latte with Meg, Son #1 tried to keep Son #2 away from me by putting his arms around me and, in the process, spilling piping hot coffee all over my hand. I started to say, "God D -" and stopped myself not nearly in time. It hurt like hell and my hand immediately turned bright red. An older gentleman in a suit came over with a napkin and I quickly recovered. About two minutes later, Son #2 came over, shook my hand to get my attention and said, "mama, mama, mama, mama, he just said . . . " and the remainder of the latte spilled all over my other hand, arm, pants, floor. I was fit to be tied. I threw the empty cup out and stormed out of church. We are NOT, I repeat, NOT going to Maggie Moos today.

I made them ride home in silence. When Son #1 spoke up and said, "well, none of this would have happened if you didn't have coffee with Mrs. J." I freaked and let a blood curdling scream out. "That's enough. Your rude behavior is not MY fault." I continued with a thick, loud stream of "I'm sick of your fighting, I'm sick of fighting with you every week to go to church, I'm sick of . . . " (Note: That should make them want to go to church now, right?)

My heart was pounding. My blood was boiling. The kids were crying. And I thought, "I'm taking my stress out on them." I've been having chest pains for two weeks and now I thought my heart was going to explode right out of my chest cavity.

Instead of going home, I drove to Tinker Park and said, "We're going to go for a walk in the woods and you're going to focus on the things you love about each other. We're not leaving until each of you comes up with 10 things that you genuinely love about your brother." We walked in silence until Son #2 piped up, "I love it when he lets me play with him." Good start. Followed by much continued silence.

They could each only come up with three things. Not one was compelling.

We walked past a half dozen deer along the trail who did not even glance in our direction. We stopped and listened to the bull frogs. And we walked the labyrinth which has meditation stones placed throughout with words such as "obedience," "reverence," and "honesty." When we got to the center stone, I made us hold hands in a circle and I prayed that we could open our hearts and be more loving. I reiterated (as I've been saying for weeks now) that the world is a difficult place where people can be cruel; our family should be a place of respite from all of that (not a place of stress). We need to bolster one another -- not tear each other down. I apologized for my primal scream and I told them a million things that I loved about both of them.

Can we go home now? Yes, and I'm checking myself into the psych ward STAT.