Don’t you love it when your mind finds new ways to fuck with you while you’re asleep?  Last night (well, technically, this morning) I had a new stress dream. 

Oh, I’ve gone through the old universal ones—running late to take a final exam for a class you’ve only been to one time and now can’t remember what room it’s in; the gun that won’t shoot the bad guy, the scream that won’t come out of your throat, the legs that run in slow motion.  Yeah, all of those.  Then I’ve had one particular to living in my home town—the elevator in the Sears Tower gets stuck while I’m in it and I need to get out the escape hatch, which takes me to a rickety fire escape on the outside of the building, where it is raining ice and there are hundred-mile-per-hour winds blowing at me up there on the 90^th-something floor.  Another one that plays on my fear of heights—the amusement park ride that looks innocent enough from the ground but ends up with my little car being catapulted into the stratosphere where no amount of screaming can save me.  And even one that was unique to having gestational diabetes and a scheduled c-section towards the end of my last pregnancy—sitting in an IHOP with a mountain of pancakes that I’ve eaten half of, drowning every bite in their syrup, then suddenly realizing with horror that I’ve got three minutes to get to the hospital for my c-section!  Oh, no, I won’t make it in time, and I’ve eaten recently, so maybe they won’t do the operation, and oh, God look what I’ve eaten, the doctor will be so pissed!  And I won’t get to have the baby as planned!

But, today I had a new one.

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“I have hives! I have hives!” I ran screaming from the bathroom, on the first morning of shooting. My husband gave me the signature “So what’s the big deal?” look from the kitchen, where he was making waffles. The kids were all decked out in logo free, plain colored outfits that had been painstakingly selected the night before. Do you know how hard it is to find nine logo free, plain colored, wardrobes…without holes? That is 63 outfits, all meeting the guidelines laid out by the production company. No wonder thousands of itchy, red bumps had taken up residence on my face and neck. The hunt for appropriate wardrobes, alone, had been a royal pain in the ass. I knew that our wardrobe quest was just the beginning of a very long and stressful two weeks. I slumped over on the bathroom floor, hives covering my skin, wondering if I was even going to make it to the point where Jo Frost knocked on our door. I kept repeating, “It’s for the kids, it’s for the kids,” every mother’s mantra.

Sure, everything we mothers do is for our kids. We live for our kids. We sacrifice without with little complaint, so that they will have a better childhood than we had. I have always tried to make choices that reflected the best interest of my children, since the day my first daughter was born. This experience, however, was testing the limits of my will to be the best parent I could. I was knowingly throwing myself and my spouse into the lion’s den. We were about to allow the nation to see every flaw, every mistake and every moment of our lives, edited at the discretion of a television production company. I had survived some extreme situations, all in the name of motherhood. Deciding to film an episode for Supernanny, trumped every other parenting trial I had encountered. If I survived the whole two weeks, I would feel an indescribable sense of accomplishment and pride. That “If” was heavily loaded.

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Ever wish you could freeze time, when you’re amid the screaming of children and general chaos that is life, to take a moment for the sake of regaining your sanity? Yeah, me too. Trust me, I’ve tried that remote trick that Adam Sandler did on “Click” and, much to my chagrin, it didn’t work. Hey…it was worth a try! I am well aware that the chaos and ear splitting shrieking that sometimes plague a parent’s day, are the norm. I understand that the high pitched decibels of toddlers mean that our children are healthy and that the chaos is the result of not doubling up on my birth control methods. That doesn’t make it any easier to navigate through the moments that make me want to call CPS and turn myself in for a made up infraction, just to get a day of peace.

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As?‚? the cashier began scanning my items at Trader Joe’s the other day, I heard a woman behind me say in a loud, impatient whisper, “That’s not 15 items.”

I felt my face go hot. I knew she was talking about me. I turned to look at her. She was holding a single bottle of wine and looking very annoyed.

I looked up at the sign hanging above my head, which read “15 items more or less.” I quickly scanned my items and counted exactly 15. OK, so what the heck was her problem? Was she counting my 4-pack of muffins as four items or something?

Now, to be fair, I’ve been her. I’ve stood in line behind the elderly guy at Rite Aid and actually felt ire for him as he insisted on paying his entire bill in change, counting out every. single. excruciating penny. I get the frustration. But, at the same time, it pisses me off. The uptightness of it all. I mean, we seem to be a people with our panties constantly in a bunch. Why is that?

Is it all the time we spend in traffic every day, combined with all the time we spend at work, combined with all the time we spend hauling our kids here and there to activities? Are we just so busy doing so many things that we really, seriously don’t have time to wait as someone in a wheelchair crosses the street in front of us? Is it really necessary to honk at them impatiently? (I kid you not, I’ve seen this happen.)

I know it’s not like this everywhere in the world. When I lived in Italy, I remember being shocked when I would find a business closed during its operating hours. I soon came to find out that just because the store was supposed to be open from 8am to 7pm, didn’t mean it would be. Sometimes store owners had family emergencies and had to open late or leave early. Imagine that! There’d usually be a note on the door that said something like, “Be back in an hour.” No one complained or stomped their feet or took it out on old ladies by honking at them to “move it along” as they hobbled across the crosswalk. No,?‚? people just accepted it and went on their way. Because they were laid back like that.

Why aren’t we laid back like that? Why do I have to deal with snide remarks at the checkout aisle by a too-young-to-look-that-tired thirty-something in line behind me? And for that matter, why do I have circles under my eyes already? Maybe we should give ourselves a break, do a little less and relax a little more.?‚? Maybe then we could get rid of our collective wedgies. Cuz damn, wedgies are really uncomfortable.