You know you are hormonal when . . .

I know I am hormonal when I am cracking myself up with my own crazy thoughts. Today, before 9am even rolled around, there were a few clues I was having a hormonal shift. Today is day #19 (some of you just thought to yourself “well that explains it!” and others thought “she actually tracks her days?”). For a long time, I have tracked my days and studied hormones in women. In laywoman’s terms, let’s just say that hormone levels change constantly, keeping us in a chronic state of change, making it difficult for me/us to stay consistent and grounded. Not everyone relates to this, because hormones are different in everyone, with some people (like me) having more erratic changes than others. Some of you were lucky enough to catch the “normal PMS” bus – I was not. (If you are a mom, you still might relate, so keep reading.)

Anyway, on to my morning . . . You know you are hormonal when:

. . . you wake up sweating and dreaming that you have fleas in your head, and you are at a conference with people you respect, and those fleas are jumping all over your forehead.

. . . you cringe at the sound of your little child asking for chocolate milk, and you are tempted to yell, “get your own d*#! Milk,” but you sweetly say, “just a minute honey” because your child is only three.

. . . you make coffee and get back in bed for the 60 seconds that it takes to brew.

. . . you praise God (outloud) that it is bagel day at school and that is one less thing you have to do this morning. (Then you pray that schools would do bagel day every day).

. . . when your child starts fussing (because he always does, and you should be used to it), you run to your stash of homeopathic vitamins that are supposed to calm your anxiety. You can barely answer the child because you have popped several of these GABA-calms under your tongue, hoping whether it is a placebo effect that it will just come through for you this time!

. . . you will not, under any circumstances, drive the kids to school without coffee in your hand, although you will leave in your PJs, without brushing hair or teeth, without any make-up, or even shoes. (There is nothing wrong with this, BTW.)

. . . you notice that it is a beautiful day (which have been scarce up until recently), so you force yourself for your kids’ sake to say, “What a nice day!”

. . . you are fully aware that you should take advantage of every beautiful Michigan day, and exercise, or walk the dog, or something! But instead, you know full well that you will go home and make a pot of coffee and enjoy staring out the window being totally non-productive.

. . . you can’t wait for the 5-minute drive to be over, so you can get a moment to yourself, feeling guilty for being so happy to dump your kids at school.

. . . THEN – 30 seconds later, you are tearful because your kids are leaving you for the day. You remind them to study hard and grow their brain cells, and, as you say it, you realize they are growing. They are not just leaving you for the day, they are leaving you!

Everyone, I wish for you today (and myself) a STABLE day!