I’m Afraid of Mondays

My children have been up for almost three hours now, and I am still sitting in the bed (homeschooling still, but bedside). I am afraid to get up! I am having flashbacks of last Monday!

Notice I didn’t blog last Monday? Post traumatic stress. I can (almost) laugh about it now…almost.

It all began with the time change. That wretched abrupt end to my beloved daylight savings time; wreaking havoc on ASD children (and their weary mothers) everywhere; causing early-risers to now wake up (and thus wake their not-so-morning-person mothers up) even earlier…WELL before sunrise, and plunging us into darkness by supper time! I HATE the time change!

So as last Monday was the first Monday after the time change, and it began with little people waking up before 5:30am demanding breakfast, I prayed. Here is my mistake — I prayed for PEACE. God PLEASE let us have peace in this household today…we are sure not off on the right foot. I think I heard God laugh.

I resorted to the poison — that coffee that I had given up many months before. It suddenly became a need. Then I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and started to organize all of the gift-wrapping supplies that had swallowed my bedroom since the previous Saturday when I had begun the whole Christmas wrapping *thing* (I have learned that if I don’t wrap AS I buy, gifts are inevitably discovered). I was making decent progress…but in the background I could hear my Cain and Abel (of which I sometimes un-affectionately refer to my 12 and 13 year old boys) fighting in the background over everything. I heaved my huge belly up from the Christmas wrapping mess to deal with the conflict, sat back down, and…

…now it was my scrappy 10-year-old girl and the aforementioned 12-year-old boy coming to blows (literally). Up to deal the problem again. Back to my task again. Blood pressure slowly rising. Begging, “Peace, God. PLEASE!” At least the 13 year old was making breakfast. He had already gotten banana bread in the oven.

“Umm…Gator? What’s that smoke smell?”
“It’s nothing, Mom. A little bit of batter overflowed from the pan.”

Not 10 minutes later it was a war zone. EVERY smoke detector in the entire house was going off. I (who am prone to panic attacks, especially when related to loud noises) was running around trying to figure out what to do. The noise was DEAFENING as I was opening windows in an attempt to air out the house. (A “little bit of batter”? How about, “this recipe really required the use of two pans, but I chose to cram it all into one”?) My heart was racing. I could feel the panic rising, as the cat ran under my bed, howling that piercing Siamese yell…and as my 3-year-old covered his ears and began screaming in terror, and as (no lie) the GUINEA PIGS started screaming. Who knew guinea pigs could scream? They were so traumatized, they didn’t leave their little hut for the rest of the day!

Gator called his dad at work to ask what to do, as the smoke detectors had been blaring for over five minutes and we couldn’t get them to quit. Rob’s suggestion, take the batteries out. So here we were, not even 9 am, and the entire day was shot. I was in hyper-panic mode (and too tired to function rationally on top of that). The children were over-stressed, and any attempt at finishing our school work was met with tears. *I*  was even in tears.

Yep, it was a Monday.

So here I am, on yet another Monday, and facing it with extreme trepidation. Pray for me — but don’t pray for peace.