Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Crazy just got a little less insane in my brain.

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This Recliner lives in my head.

This is where I choose to sit (in my mind) at any point during my day when I feel that I am in danger of my head exploding. If everything is crazy all around me, I am in this chair. I had to do something...I needed a place to just sit and relax because the daily grind of being a Mom was starting to rob me of my joy.

Little things started to get to me. Things that shouldn't matter. Like the 20 minutes before I take Griffin to school. For some reason I was feeling really tense every single day at this time. From having to tell Griffin ten times to put on his shoes to watching him dawdle his slow little butt to the car as we froze half to death in unseasonably cold weather that we are all ill prepared for. I would get vexed with how heavy Koen felt in my arms as I rushed to get Griffin settled in his classroom so that I could get the baby back home where it was warm. It was like a mad insane dash that was designed to drive me crazy. I have to repeat this process everyday, so why be all tense about it?

I decided to get a recliner for my brain. I know that it's an ugly chair but it's so comfy. I sit in it at the grocery store too. When Griffin is touching everything in sight even when I asked him to keep his hands in his pockets and he knocks down this and that off the shelves. We simply leave a little trail behind us as I plop down into my mental recliner. When he begs over and over for me to buy him whatever crappy food he saw advertised on Nickelodeon, I just take a seat. Sometimes, I pop out the footrest and recline back when I am in traffic and the baby is crying and Griffin is screaming over the baby that he wants candy or that he wants to watch Spongebob and play video games at the top of his lungs over and over and over. Even better is when he starts freaking out that the Koen is freaking out and both of them are in tears. I mean, moments like this will continue happening throughout my career as a Mom. So why get all worked up about it?

Since getting this mental recliner, I am a much more laid back Mom. Once I made the decision to relax a bit, my kids got cuter and less annoying. The housework (though forever daunting) didn't seem to overwhelm me so much. My shoulders aren't glued to my ears anymore. I even caught myself laughing yesterday when I discovered that I accidentally washed yet another dirty diaper in a load of laundry and not the cloth kind either. No, this was Huggies and do you know what happens when you wash a Huggies diaper in the laundry? You don't want to know.

I love my chair. It keeps me sane.

18 comments:

Lee said...

I put myself in a mental straight jacket in a mental padded room. Something about the lack of color...

June said...

I think there are plenty of Mom's that could use a mental chair! I would be one of them!!

Ducky said...

eh...who cares if the chair is ugly.

1. you're the only one who can see it (the voices in your head don't have eyes just incase you were wondering)

2. At least it isn't a stripper pole....then I would be worried

Missy said...

Okay ladies, let's start a new Club. The "Insane Brain Mothers Guild".

Sound like a novel idea? Because I so can use the comfort of knowing that I'm not the only Mama that has completely lost it and thought it would never come back.

Tami G said...

OK - I LOOOOOOOOVE ur chair! what a GREAT idea!!!!!!
I think I have one in my brain too - I just never knew what it was... my chair causes me to be able to BLOCK OUT life! (and trust me - I do that ALOT!)

what a GREAT idea......
I'm shopping for a chair today!
too cute!

Anonymous said...

A recliner for your brain...an awesome idea! I think I'm gonna getone, too.

BigSis said...

I totally need one of those. And, I have definitely washed a diaper before - HUGE mess.

Yankee Girl said...

A chair seems like a much better, healthier idea than what I do, which is lots of wine.

Must think about investing in a good chair...

Meandering Mel said...

Oh my god. I'm taking a carbon copy of your chair.

Oh my god. It's glorious. All of a sudden, my kind of shitty (no-pun intended) morning, is less awful. :)

SPEAKING FROM THE CRIB said...

my recliner comes with ear plugs too - takes care of the screaming

Alice in Wonderland said...

WE should all have a recliner chair in our brains...preferably one that comes with ear-plugs and plays soothing music too!
I don't know about Huggies in the washing machine, but I know what a mess tissues make in a load of dark coloured clothes!

Existential Waitress said...

You know what? I DO know what happens when you wash a non-cloth diaper in the washing machine and it ain't pretty...(done it more than once. or twice).

I like this idea of a recliner for my brain - b/c the monotony of dealing with small children DOES get to you after a while. Yes, I like this recliner idea... thank you! :)

Unknown said...

I have washed a regular diaper before and it was not pretty. I wanted to scratch my eyeballs out when I opened it up to transfer everything to the dryer.

Danielle said...

First, I need to know where to get me one of those chairs. ! :)
and I have see what happens to a diaper that is full and opens. Not pretty. I can't imagine it going through the wash.

Anonymous said...

Eww. I'm imagining the diaper in the wash. Visualizing... visualizing... erasing... and... it's gone. Thank God.

Dee at Pedestrian Palate said...

HMMMMM Maybe I can have a bed installed in my head and I can go there during meetings and nap.

Unknown said...

I absolutely LOVED this post.
Thank you so much for writing it. It was just what I needed to hear at just the time I needed it.

Allyson said...

damn you are clever. why didn't i think of this?!