Sausage Links & A Mu Mu

Sometimes I think it would just be better if there was a place I could go when I am PMSing.  A place where the accepted wardrobe is a mu mu.  A place where both sweet and salty snacks were at the ready.   A place without judgement, a place without husbands and children.  Don't get me wrong, I'm merely thinking of them.  This last bout was particularly rough and I am not meant to parent in an appropriate fashion while bloated up like Elvis in his last days but with the demeanor of Attila the Hun.

Patience is limited in my world at the best of times but throw some raging hormones into the mix and it gets downright ugly.  My son fell asleep on the couch the other night.  My husband took him to bed and then when I went to say good night to him he was awake and adamant that he brush his teeth.  Instead of being pleased with his desire to practise good personal hygiene despite utter exhaustion, I practically threw a tantrum.  I just wanted him to go to sleep.  So finally I barked: "Fine, go brush your teeth!"  in a manner one might tell their child to have another cookie or stay up an extra 15 minutes.

Did I mention I become entirely irrational as well?

And this time around I was treated to a level of bloating previously unmatched.  Even my stretchy pants were uncomfortable.  Granted they were my 'dressy' stretch pants and not my actual sweat pants but good Lord.  It was too much.  I literally could have passed as a good five months pregnant yesterday.  So off I went to parent teacher interviews in elastic waisted pants and a sweatshirt.  Thank God my children are good students and so, I hope, I can get away with a little more.  Jeans or any pants that had an actual button and fly were out of the question.  Not unless I wanted to be in pain the entire time and resemble link sausage.

Joy of joy though, I found peanut butter cups in my van two mornings ago.  I snuck them into the house with my three year old seeing and squirreled them away into a cupboard and snacked on them through the day.  The same evening I ate a Snickers bar and half a KitKat.  Yesterday I had a Skor latte and four Fudgee-Os.

I will not be weighing myself until sometime in the middle of next week and hopefully a good bout of the stomach flu.

Every month brings something different.  Mother Nature is sweet in that way.  Never wanting us, or me anyway, to get bored or be prepared for the onslaught of physical and emotional discomforts coming our way for a good week of every month.  I know my family appreciates it as well. 

For now though, it's off to the showers I go and then hopefully, fingers crossed, into a pair of honest to goodness pants.  Is there enough stretch?  We shall see.

No, I'm not Pregnant

Confused?  I chose this as my title because it's been at least two months, if not more, since I posted here.   And no it's not because I have stopped experiencing PMS, it's just that I couldn't find anything very funny about it.  It's also due to my continued daftness about the whole thing.  It's not until it's painfully obvious that I realize the rage and incessant stuffing of my face are connected with something other than my generally sparkling personality.

For example, I was lucky enough to ring in 2011 with Mother Nature's greatest gift to us gals there is.  Which meant that Christmas was more than its usual free for all food extravaganza.  I ingested mass quantities of food.  Turkey, turkey and more turkey.  And pop. And candy.  So much delicious candy. Turkey buns soaked with butter.  White buns, no less.  Also, I was extremely bitchy between Christmas and New Year's. One day in particular I preferred it if no one spoke to me at all.  Doesn't that sound festive?

My annual New Year's Day hangover was blessed with a headache.  This is not terribly unusual, I know, but for me it is.  Normally I'm a nauseous Norma.  Instead I prayed my eyeball would not expose and nothing would crawl out of the actual eye socket.  I am blaming this on Mother Nature as well.

She's like the Mother of all Mothers to blame for one's issues.  I am currently choosing not to weigh myself but when I do, it's likely going to reflect my Christmas/PMS binge and I will blame her for that too.  Not my complete and total lack of self control or sugar addiction.  Nope, never.  If I wouldn't have been coming up to this blessed event I bet I would've snacked only on fresh vegetables and hummus.  And drank only water and ate grilled chicken with half a piece of dry brown toast.  Every day.  Sweet tooth be damned.  I would've quelled it with a delicious Christmas orange.  Mother Nature fucked that all up and now I'm afraid to put my jeans on today.  They'll be uncomfortable.  Although I do believe I have a pair I haven't washed yet that will be a little more forgiving.

Don't judge me in my comfortable dirty jeans.  It's not my fault, it's Hers.

The GiftThat Just Keeps on Giving

So I've decided the only thing worse or even comparable to suffering from one's own PMS is living with a person who possesses half your DNA, who is also PMSing.  My daughter is 13.  Her and I are on the same 'schedule'.  Well really just as I'm re-evolving back into myself she is becoming possessed by some unpredictable mean girl named Julie.  Julie is just what I've decided to call her when she's suffering the throes of monthly mind/body/soul manipulation courtesy of Mother Nature.

I'm not bashing her.  I love her very much.  It's just that now I have an inside look into watching somebody you are familiar with turn into someone else altogether.   She's mean.  She's hard to please.  She's emotional.  Oh, wait, she's happy.  Um, wait, no she's not.  Somebody feed her some chocolate!  Yesterday I bought her some Midol type of pills and it made me think of that episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where Ray brings homes the pills to Debra and he's quite proud of himself and she nearly shoves them up his ass.  I envisioned a similar scene unfolding when I presented daughter with them yesterday.  Instead she just looked at me and barely acknowledged my presence.  I backed away quietly.

My dear daughter comes from a long line of women who are more than a little impacted by hormones.  None of us, to date, have had an easy go of it.  We could've written that new Kotex commercial with the awesome chic talking about twirling and kittens.  There is no escape. 

Now should things ever really line up and we both 'transform' at the exact same time, I'm afraid we'll have to rent an apartment in the name of sparing the penis-bearers in our home.  Because God help them, they couldn't say or do anything right for, at the very least, a few pivotal hours or so.  On the best of days it's trial and error but when Julie and Janet (my alter ego, I've decided) are around, it's nearly impossible.

Oh well, at 33 and 13, we respectively have approximately 20 and 30 or so years to go.  Maybe more, maybe less.  This seems so unfair.  I'm of the belief Mother Nature should back off until females are at least 16 and then once done child bearing, be done.  Not in a nasty night sweating hot flashing beard growing way, just done.  Or if you choose not to have children, once that decision is firmly made, you get to be done. 

Alas, I am not Mother Nature.  Just some poor soul with an alter-ego who makes a timed monthly appearance and a daughter following in the same path....

Bring on the Midol (for Julie, Janet prefers Vodka).