I lost it.

You know the old saying that all moms have used- "I'm going to LOSE it!"
I can recall my own mother using this multiple times during my youth.  I also recall hearing other mothers exclaim this to their children as well.
It comes in many forms:
    I'm going to lose it!
    I'm losing it!
    You had better stop or Mommies going to lose it!
    One more time and I will be losing it!
All the same, and used with the same meaning. 
As a child I never quite understood what exactly my mother was losing.  The same can be said of the other countless mothers I heard use this.  Never an explanation of what they were losing, just that they were indeed in the process of losing "it".

Well, as I had been warned, I have become my mother in many ways.  This summer I have begun "losing it".  I have found myself "losing it" for awhile now, and just like all mothers I have been warning my children ahead of time.  I have discovered that the warning of "losing it" really does nothing, and in turn, it actually contributes to "losing it" more.  I assumed that "losing it" meant losing my sanity because that's what I feel I'm losing.  However, I discovered today that "losing it" meant much more than that!

Where to start?  Hmmm...well, I was married on...ok, just kidding about that, but really, I could start there:)!

Mostly it's been in the last month.  To start- Kenny has been coming home very late every night.  And by "very late" I mean later than the normal 8-9pm.  I'm lucky if he gets home before 10:00pm every night now.  Then, when he is home he's tired, hungry, and busy dealing with work stuff like studying or preparing for future surgeries. 
I knew that when he became Chief Resident it would get worse, but I didn't realize the kids and I would only get about 2 hours of quality time with him per week.  (I may be exaggerating a little, and once he reads this I will probably get a stern talking to.)  Well, it FEELS like only a few hours when it's late Sunday night and I realize that I (mostly the kids) won't see him until Friday night.
I feel sorry for him, it's not his fault and there's nothing he can do about it, but boy- it sucks.

The second factor is dinner.  Yes, dinner.  Sounds weird I know, but I have been struggling with dinner lately.  It's hard to make dinner in summer- it's hot and hard to cook when you don't want to heat up the house.  Normally Kenny does alot of grilling in the summer, but as seen before, he's never home.  So, dinner is up to me, but if you don't know I have very picky kids.  They like nothing.  So, when I make dinner about 99.9% of the time someone complains about eating it.  Which as all mothers know make us want to slave over dinner even more!  And since Kenny isn't home to appreciate it either, it makes it close to impossible to have the desire to cook dinner.
All this sums up the fact that my family is lucky if I make dinner once a week.

The third, and possibly last- although I'm sure their were many other factors, was the problem with working out.  You see, before my kids were on summer break I was able to go running everyday.  But now that they are home (and it's too hot to run outside) I haven't found the time to run.  And I really miss my quiet running time.  Now I have my treadmill, but do you really think that will be my "quiet" running time?  Me neither.

Well, now that you have the back story I will now explain how I lost it.

Yesterday I had a great day!  I started the day by mowing the lawn, weed eating, and weeding my gardens.  I ended up with 3 blisters.  I hate blisters:).  To add to my successful day I cooked dinner.  Yes, my family was as shocked as you all are.  And to cause further astonishment, it was one of my families favorite dishes which takes alot of preparation and cooking.  It was a huge noodle type casserole (kind of like a fancy lasagna).  I planned ahead and made enough to last for the next 3-4 days.  I know my family will actually eat these leftovers, and I was excited to be set for the next couple of days!

I woke up today with great expectations!  I wanted to run on my treadmill, get some house work done, and take Logan to his doctor appointment.  It was going to be a good day just like yesterday.  Little did I know what was waiting for me.
The day started off with the usual bickering about breakfast.  Then it continued on to the daily spilling of the cereal all over the place and watching it drip off the table onto the floor.  Shortly followed by the usual, "I'm going to lose it today."
Then I had the pleasure of a little boy bringing me one of those boards that looks like a "fake drawer" above my bathroom cupboard, and explaining that "this fell off".  Yes, because that's what they do.
Shortly after my children begged me to let them build a fort in the living room with pillows and blankets.  I agreed but insisted that they clean it up later.  The fort ended up being a fighting ring, as it only caused arguments about how it should be built.  I preceded to tell my kids that I was "losing it"!
I then decided to run on my treadmill.  I knew that I needed to relive some stress.  So I head toward my office room and start to turn on my treadmill when I see a pencil sticking out of the engine cover.  I soon remember that my toddler loves to put things in my treadmill, and since it hadn't been used in awhile I figured it probably had quite a bit in it.  I found my screw driver, took off the engine cover and discovered 8 crayons, 3 colored pencils, 1 marker, 3 batteries, and 1 DS game.  Breath deeply- I told myself.
I just wanted to run.
I get on my treadmill, input my stats, and start my workout.  I was on exactly 2 minutes and 34 seconds when I hear Katie trying to tell me something from the kitchen.  I tell her to come to me if she has something to tell me.  She very casually walks into the office room and says, "um mom..." (Never a good start), "um... I was getting the sour cream out of the fridge and I shut the door... and it opened... and it fell out."   What?!?
"The casserole fell out."
Once I heard that I thought, oh crap...I'm losing it.
I went to the kitchen expecting to find a casserole dumped on the floor.  I got that, plus my baking dish (of course it was the one I use the most) shattered on my kitchen floor.  Noodles everywhere.  Glass everywhere.  Fridge door open.  Baby standing in the middle of it.
I lost it.

The funny part about losing it is that you don't actually freak out.  You are in a state of shock.  You walk over, pick the baby up out of the middle of broken glass and pasta.  Then you preceed to gather up the planned 2 days worth of dinner and shards of broken glass in your hands and dump it into the trash.  You don't notice the shards that are lodging into your hands, because you had already lost it.  You throw away the last peices of your favorite baking dish.  You don't answer your children when they keep asking you what your doing.  (Because it wasn't clear to them what your doing.)  In fact, you just ignore everything going on around you while you slowly pick up the broken pieces of your sanity off the floor.  I would liken it to an out of body experience.
And after spending 1 hour cleaning and vaccuming up the last dinner you'll ever make, you walk back onto your treadmill, crank up the music, and run, because that's all you can do.
I'm pretty sure my kids thought I had gone crazy.  I didn't speak to them for close to an hour after all of this for fear of what might come out of my mouth.
The only good news is that I was able to see Kenny during the day for about 5 minutes!  We surprised him at work, and it was exactly what I needed today!