by Anita Brown

Created on: August 27, 2008

All I want right now is a nice hot bubble bath. However the kids are running around making as much noise as they can, There sre cookie crumbs and milk stomped into my new carpet. My compact disc machine broken due to a strawberry milk shake being poured onto it. I burnt supper because the kids were play fighting and banged into my china cabinet, sending my crystal vase toppling to the floor. Glass is everywhere, I grab a broom and scream for the kids to get onto the couch so they don't step on the broken glass.

Stress, you don't know stress until you have spent a day in my house. Oh Oh, I forgot the PTA meeting. My oldest reminds me a mere five minutes before it starts. Where is the kids father, he needs to watch the younger ones while I attend the meeting. There he is, seven minutes late but better late that never,right?

Good grief, I have to get my son to his baseball game. Try to keep my sanity while I dress the kids and pack a lunch for them. Then load them into the van, hearing one of them almost crying that they forgot to use the bathroom. Late again, as usual. Oh did I forget to tell you that I foolishly had seven children. Yes, I do love them, however, why didn't someone tell me that kids were so much work, emotionally and physicly.

Finally they are tucked into bed for the night, I hope. I toss a load of clothes into the washer and realize that I forgot to take the last load out and the mangy smell slaps me right in the nose. Redo that load. Set the breakfast table for tomorro. I think being one step ahead will ease the next days burdens. Pack their lunches for school, hang their bookbags with their coats and place their shoes underneath so they will have everything together.

Now, am I ready for that bubble bath and the novel I started reading about three months ago. Finding not enough hours in the day to actually read it all. I start runing the water for the much need leisure time, and, the baby is screaming at the top of her lungs. She is hungry, she feels the need to let the whole neighborhood know that I am a little late with her feeding. So I pick her up and change her, then feed her,burp her and get her back to bed.

Now...that bath...on noooooooo....there is water everywhere. guess I forgot to shut off the water when the baby woke up. Nevermind the bubble bath I was so desperate for. I clean up the water as best I can. Then drag my weary body to bed with a pounding headache. I just doze off and the alarm goes off, making me jump near out of my skin. Here we go, another day, more fights to break up, messes to clean, bruises to kiss better and sanity to try and keep.

Stress is not for the weak of heart. And it will dull even the brightest eyes. You will cry, pop meds and suffer near breakdowns. But you won't change a thing. You will fall asleep and wake up to repeat the very things that stressed you out in the first place.You may donne your finest dress and look like the most put together person in the town but inside, you are crying for your sanity. So stressed out that you are crumbling and nobody knows it but you.

Thats stress.

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