Today I didn’t have a root canal but I wish I had done. I even had one scheduled but instead I chose to look after not only my two children but two of somebody else’s. Last time I went to see my doctor she told me to keep a diary of my premenstrual activity. Now as I write I am about to boil over. There are four children under the age of six playing not so musical instruments. Or rather bashing violently on a keyboard, plastic guitar, tambourine, and hitting each other over the head with maracas. I have just started crying for no reason other than the noise level is getting totally out of control. And so is my PMS. The two boys are screaming and running up and down the stairs, slamming doors and throwing the keyboard and guitar at each other.
Why would anybody tidy up when they have other kids coming to play? I generally get the packet of Cheerios out and sprinkle them liberally on the carpet. Then I get the cat litter tray and kick it hard so that the contents cover the entire wooden floor of the hallway. I take two unopened juice boxes and stamp on them as hard as I can so that they spray around the room and finish off by shaking a can of soda and letting it hiss everywhere. I then get a few of the sharpest dinosaurs and the really small pieces of Lego and hide them under the rug so that they emerge later and pierce my feet when I have forgotten about them. Oh and let’s not forget a few raisins to stick to my bare feet and make me thing the slugs are back. I hide a few of the library books and videos as well in places that I know I will never find them. I look forward to having an argument with the dragon at the library about how much I have to pay for them. Ah yes and I remember to pour half a cup of milk on one library book so that the mildew grows nicely and I get fined for a book that is now supposedly unreadable.
Normally I would have a glass of wine right now but I have promised my liver that I will turn over a new leaf.
Later on I give the visiting children some pizza. I choose to eat in the kitchen rather than at the table with them. My wish to dine in detritus is not great today. In fact I am still appalled at myself for cancelling the root canal. Another wave of misery attacks me and I leave the room so that the visiting kids can’t see what a psycho I am. And this is only the first day of PMS. I still have about another six days to look forward to. I feel lower than a python’s pubes. The children have troughed and run so I make myself a cup of calming tea but manage to pour boiling water on my feet and hop around the kitchen screaming and cursing like a demented dog. Just at this moment the visiting girl who is very sweet and kind appears and enquires if I am OK. Luckily the boiling water story is good for explaining my turmoil even though it really only explains a small part of my premonstrual state of mind. And then I step in a sticky patch on the floor and hurry away to put some socks on. My tolerance for stickiness is very low these days. I always used to wonder before we had kids why our friends’ dining table was always sticky. Now I know. However many times you wipe and spray and scrub a table that children have eaten at, it will never ever be unsticky again.
Humor is supposed to be a good way of counteracting anxiety but in no way does anything seem funny today. I think when you give birth to children you not only donate a large portion of your brain cells but also the majority of your sense of humor.
Jimmy came home this evening and our conversation went as follows:
“Have you got your period again? I thought you just had one.”
“No I’ve got f**king PMS you insensitive bastard.”
Then Henry called Jimmy an arsehole and he left the house again slamming the door and disappeared into his garage for many hours leaving me to cope with the terror tots during dinner and bedtime.
The most irritating toy in the house, a police radio, blares out: “Emergency in the living room. Please come quickly.” I stamp on it and put it in the trash. I strongly believe that terrorists should be tortured by toy and none of this water boarding nonsense. I mean put the terrorists in a room day and night with small kids after they have eaten a bowl of chocolate ice cream and they would soon admit any crime that you wanted them to.
Henry is having his final fiddle down his pants before bedtime and decides to play with the sunscreen spray despite me asking him 376 times not to. He manages to aim it directly into his eye and then press the nozzle. And hey presto we have another screaming session which I swear is just a sophisticated bedtime delaying tactic.
“Mom you look really fat tonight,” he says once he has stopped yelling. I shout at him that I hate being called Mom and that he is to call me Mummy. I also tell him that he is a miserable little shite for telling me what I already know – I look bloated beyond extreme.
I vow to try a different contraceptive pill after this period. Having been on the same pill for about twenty years and suffered from PMS for a week each month, I need to do something about it. I always have this horrible, miserable depression that looms over me and leaves me feeling murderous. At least I have finally started my premenstrual diary which I promised to start last July. I have a sample packet of a new pill which the doctor gave me and I still have not had the courage to try it. Some people say it gives them migraines and others claim that it screws your veins up. I am just nervous of changing pills after all this time. What if it makes me grow two more heads or a full on beard and moustache? I have never been very hairy apart from when I grew a white fluffy beard when I was pregnant.
I do a final check of my email before going to bed and am slightly cheered up by some spam that got through the filter:
“At-last-you-can-please–your-woman-needle-dick!”
It brings a smirk to my face and I think, well at least in my marriage it is more a case of:
“Ease your passage, marrow man!”
But I don’t think any of those things are applicable tonight. It would be too dangerous for anybody to approach any of my orifices.
