Neuroticisim

My kids are at their grandparents, my parents. It has been over three years that Brian and I have spend a 24hr period without a little person to wake us up, be fed, or need something. So obviously I am not used to be away from the kiddos, and I have never been away from Lainey.  She is a momma's girl by the way, if you were wondering.

So my mom lives a little under 2 hrs away, and the whole deal is that we will meet half way on the mountain. The mountain. THE MOUNTAIN. I don't mind driving over the mountain, but the couple of times she has gotten Ellis, and we have met on THE MOUNTAIN, the whole ride home I obsess about them in a fiery car crash. I am a nut case like that. Really in all aspects of my kids lives I worry obsessively about everything. I really think it is this generation of mothers or something. Like I know my grandmother wasn't like that with my mom, aunt, and uncle. I know she smoked while pregnant, maybe drank too I don't know. I know it sure wasn't a big deal back then, I do watch Mad Men.She let things roll. There was no hyper sensitive politically correct parenting method crap. She carried spark plug wires in her purse for goodness sake if someone needed an ass beating at the grocery store. Not kidding. Her kids turned out alright. They are all productive citizens that don't have criminal records and take care of their own kids. I mean I am a result, gotta be doing something right. Now if you swat your kids "bottom" at the Publix, you get freaking stares from people (or your husband slowly walks away not to be associated with you although your 2 yr old needed it like no tomorrow).

 Or my parents are you kidding me, my mom wasn't freaked out to be away from us. We would spend weeks with our grandparents out of state. Sometimes when we spent the night with Mimi and Papa was out of town, she would have her shotgun in the corner of her bedroom, in case she needed to shoot an intruder, we knew it was there for that reason. We slept in the room with the gun. I swear like if I knew my kids were in the room with a gun in the corner now because of my obsessing I would make my self sick thinking they would shoot themselves. Wouldn't happen but I would OBSESS. We were always safe, my kids would be safe, but I would be a nut case. Do you see the news? Kids shoot themselves all the time.  My parents smoked all around us growing up IN THE HOUSE, probably while feeding us a bottle. Me oh no, I see a baby in the smoking section of a restaurant (when that used to be allowed) and I would be ready to call DCS. My son doesn't even know what a cigarette is. He is almost 3. Yes cigarette smoke means instant death. Of course I know in my head that is not true, but tell my neurotic mommy self.

And there is so much other stuff to obsess over. Fevers, schools, teachers, friends, social skills, grades, IQ, diet, bullying, violence, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, waiting list for preschool, kindergarten, passing the test to get into the magnet school, on and on and on.

So I drove all the way to my mom's house to drop them off. I called her when I was already half way. She told me I was crazy, I concurred. She told me to just to stop on the mountain and she would leave and meet me. I couldn't. Car crashes happen. Have you seen the Oprah where the people lost their 3 babies all at once. The blonde haired blue eyed babies, like mine. So I dropped them off, and then drove another 2hrs home. It was a peaceful drive. No thoughts of car crashes because my mother is driving off the mountain.

 What is wrong with me. The thing is I don't feel alone, because I have friends that share some of my neurotic thoughts. I have noticed that I have them all, and my friend might have just one, but you know whatever.