Acting crazy

I guess it was my 2nd year of teaching during 6th Grader Orientation when I made a comment to parents about kids acting crazy in the hallways. As one particular group of parents was leaving my classroom, a father came up to me and said he was a psychologist on a mission to stop people from using the word "crazy" because of the negative connotations and how it affects people with true mental illness.

At the time I got a little irked because I thought, "This man has clearly never been in a middle school hallway filled with 200+ 6th graders during class changes otherwise he would understand that they do, in fact, act crazy."

When my issues with OCD and GAD exploded, I thought alot about this father and could better appreciate his stance on the term "acting crazy," especially when I first visited a therapist and psychiatrist. I mean, you have to be crazy to need either of those professionals in your life, right?

Now, as the 8-month-pregnant stay-at-home mom of a 3.5-year-old, my spin on craziness has changed again and mostly due to the fact that preschoolers, especially over-tired preschoolers who wake up too early and then fight a nap, are, beyond a doubt, the craziest human beings on the planet.

Clinically crazy people have real chemical issues complicated by stressful life experiences. I guess that fits most 3-year-olds. All sorts of brain wiring changes and development going on, causing them to assert their authority and control over situations and people without actually having the mental or emotional maturity to reason through their decisions or understand consequences. Yep, sounds like crazy to me.

No doubt, given the heat and my stage of pregnancy, I am lacking in patience, but there is really only so much shit I'm going to take off a 3-year-old.

The other day I had to give her a time-out in a grocery bathroom. It is amazing how I can haul her under one arm with my purse clutched in the other arm and my bulging belly leading the way as we march at a fast clip towards the john...it must be the adrenaline rush from anger because most of the time I haven't the energy to chew a stick of gum.

And I know with N, she acts out nearly everytime due to tiredness. She is generally a really easy-going kid who just morphs into Ms. Hyde when she needs a good 2-hour nap. So I hate it that I get so pissed off because I know why she is doing it, and I feel so sad when she is crying and upset because she is my baby, after all. But DAMMIT, I got turds bigger than her....I refuse to allow my 3-year-old to run the show.

And the most upsetting thing of all: Saying this about my child makes me know that I have officially turned into my mother.