The 3 Things Guaranteed To Make Me "Mom Panic"

The 3 Things Guaranteed To Make Me "Mom Panic"
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Mom Panic.

We've all been there. One moment you're totally serene and tranquil (or as serene and tranquil as you can possibly be as the caretaker of small living, breathing, human beings) and the next you're a whirling dervish, with wild eyes and beads of sweat criss-crossing your armpits like the Blue Angels.

I'm not particularly high-strung by nature, but there are a handful of events that WILL turn me into a wild-eyed monster faster than you can say "Angelia Houston".

Needing to Poop

I've been on this planet for a while now, so I feel relatively comfortable assuming that, as much as we might like to think otherwise, we all ultimately must go #2. You'll have to forgive me for broaching this subject right off the bat, but it's top of mind and I feel the need to eliminate it right away ;)

Fortunately, for us, regularly moving one's bowels is what keeps our bodies functioning as they were designed and allows us to live without toxins taking over. UNfortunately, sometimes this perfectly natural bodily function strikes when you're exactly at the halfway point of a run with both of your children in the jogging stroller.

Here's where the panic kicks in. Immediately, my mind kicks into hypothetical I Shouldn't Be Alive scenario mode and I see three possible outcomes.

  1. Transcending time, space and athletic ability, I Usain Bolt us all home and relive myself.
  2. I ask a kind soul to take pity on me and allow me to use their restroom. (This outcome opens up a Pandora's Box of alternative panic situations, so I try to avoid it at all costs).
  3. I poop in my pants.

As a frequent participant in this panic-inducing scenario, I will tell you that Option 1 is the preferred and most often sought after solution. If you ever see me running and thing, "Damn, that girl is fast." - now you know why.

Losing Your Child in a Clothing Rack

Holy hell.

A woman does not know true panic until she thinks she has lost her child in a TJMaxx. Is this not a common enough problem that some of the major retailers might think about re-desgining their archaic means for displaying clothing? Because you just know that back in 1963, Sterling Cooper had a meeting that went a little something like this:

Alright gentlemen, every single department store in the world has decided to move in a new direction with clothes hanging and they've hired us to spearhead the movement. What've we got?Well sir, we've come up with this innovative model of hanging clothes in giant circles so that not only will clothing be crammed in SO tightly that pulling one hanger off the rack will cause each adjacent garment to fall on the floor, but all children under the age of seven will be unable to resist the urge to hide in these racks and remain undetected by their mothers for up to eight minutes. And because women are simple creatures, our focus groups have concluded that they will likely to spend 10x more time in the store, moving from rack to rack to find their "lost" children and therefore spend equal amounts of time eyeing each item on the racks.Brilliant! Let's make this our marketing strategy until the end of time!

Alright, maybe it didn't go exactly like that, but it was probably something pretty darn close.

Not Enough Milk

The crescendo of panic that boils up in a mother when she's attached to a breast pump is in a category all its own. It reminds me of something from one of those Saw movies that came out (and came out and came out and came out) back when I used to need to pay money to feel scared about stuff.

Because when you think about it, isn't pumping exactly like a horror movie?

You are sitting, alone in a dark room. Your body is hooked up to a machine that is literally sucking the nutrients out of you, pull by droning pull and if you aren't able to produce the required amount, someone you love - who is not in the room with you - will die.

Okay, well not exactly die, because well, formula, but you catch my drift, right?

Scary stuff.

Thankfully, these three types of Mom Panic don't come around too often, but I am here to tell you that when they do, I promise that you don't want to be within a 50' radius of me. Unless you like watching a 32-year-old woman sprint for her life to the bathroom - then I suggest you stick around awhile.

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