Ahrrroooo! (sorry kitty).  It's a full moon out tonight.  I'm a believer in the environmental experience, and so I attribute my four children going absolutely bananas this morning to this lovely period.  No pun intended. 

So, here were the reasons to believe total meltdown might be iminent. After a little yoga and deep breathing it was all okay.

1.  My husband has been away on a business trip for a week.
You gotta love overacheiving husbands.  Especially the ones who want to be super dad, too, like mine.  They wield that Blackberry like a sword in one hand, taking conference calls with opposing counsel and conversing pleasantly with medieval undertones (i.e.  "You can move for mediation and see what the judge says.  He already has the documents perjuring your client,"  which really means "You're gonna lose your head in there, you momo!")  and waving around the Wii wand in the other hand while playing a game of baseball with the boys.  Overachieving husbands who are on a week long business trip, now that's a different story.  Especially when you've got four kids under the age of 6 on Spring Break and a nanny that looks like she's going to split any second.  'Nuff said.

2. My daughter is going bald.
This affliction decided to visit my four year old, and I've been seeing a doctor who prescribed a cream and has kept me coming back repeatedly for the last 18 weeks.  FYI: If you have great med insurance and you see doctors in private practice, while most may be ethical, never ever trust anyone.  HMOs will write you a prescription for something nuclear and the subtext in their goodbye is "Don't ever ever come back here again unless you're on your deathbed.  Or considering a lawsuit."  Private practice doctors, however, love to see you again.  After requesting the oral medication, this doctor told me she didn't need it yet since it wasn't spreading that much, and to come back in 3 weeks.  After hearing a story about a friend's child who went completely bald due to the same condition, and finding another bald spot on her head last night, I surfed the net last night and researched her condition and lo and behold, most doctors agree this condition on the scalp cannot be cured without the oral medication.  There are also a ton of other steps necessary: washing towels and pillowcases after every use, throwing out old combs, essential oil on the scalp.  Steps my doctor didn't even inform me of.  I called him the day after the appointment asking for the medication, and guess what?  I have to bring my daughter back in.  Grrrr.

3.  Oppositional Defiance
Suddenly my sweet little six year old boy is going on sixteen.  "Would you like to go to the gym and play with your friends while I work out?" "No"  "Play a game of Trouble with me?" "No"  "Go out to lunch?" "No"  Same goes for the rest of the kids since they're his built in peanut gallery.  I've got to bite my lip to not say, "When I was a kid I stayed home all the time, never ate out," blah blah blah.  Like a good friend said once,  "If I fed my cat caviar everyday and switched over to a can of tuna, my cat would look at me as if to say, "Forget you!  Where's my caviar?"

4.  Defunct IPod
I'm training for the Bay to Breakers event.  I'm not a runner, this is all some sort of wacked out endurance experiment that has made me believe that I'm far removed from those distant ancestors who used to run after everything to eat.  I must be a descendant of fat extra terrestrials who teleported everywhere because as soon as I get off my bottom, something starts hurtin'.  I'm up to 6.5 miles of running, and that's solely attributed to the fact that I have some killer music downloaded on my IPod, everything from vintage Madonna to Glambert (which I lot of people have snickered are the same thing) to grunge and themes from Miami Vice, Star Wars, and Coppola's Dracula.  Running without my IPod is a huge chore.  

So, if you're having a bad day, remind yourself that:  you've got your family, some hair, nice tunes to listen to (eventually) and you've got today to live for, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.  It's the only thing that got me through the day.  Time to get out there and do some living.  In times like this the best thing you can do is say what my husband tells my boys if they ever find they need to defend a sibling and receive a royal whupping from a bigger kid. "Mother, may I have another?" and get up.  Just keep getting up.  And if these are the worst problems I have (hope hope), then life is pretty good.