PMS is A Liar.

I don't hate my husband's job, but PMS can make me feel like I do. 

 My husband has a fantastic job as a Project Manager (Way to go on your recent promotion, Boo!) with a nationally based HVAC company. He works hard. REALLY HARD. Like he-doesn't-see-the-kids-for-days-at-a-time some weeks kinda busy. It can really stink sometimes. However, the flip side is that, on some other weeks, he's able to hide at his desk answering phone calls and emails while listening to the screeches and screams and school noise work from home most days so our breakfasts and lunches and prenap time snuggles get to include him some, too. 

And y'all, most weeks I'm fine with his hectic schedule. I can roll with the punches and dig in deep to do the afternoons and evenings and suppers and bathtub water fights and teeth flossing and Bible reading and all the rest of our seemingly endless nighttime routine by myself. (How many times do I have to keep going into bedrooms before I turn into a zombie?? I do not know, but the current count is approximately 73.) I can survive it, mostly, with a can-do attitude and a few extra cups of coffee and not grumble too much. Bless.

BUT THERE IS ONE WEEK(ish) A MONTH WHEN I CAN NOT EVEN DEAL. Every late night is a personal attack. Every interrupted meal is a targeted insult. Every phone call from a job site wounds. The chip on my shoulder grows larger and my resentments build. I become moody and temperamental and extremely self centered. Gulp.

And it's not just my husband working late. PMS makes me believe that my kids are villains and my house is one step away from being declared a hazardous waste zone. I clean and scrub and still never feel like I accomplish anything. My pants are too tight and my fuse is too short. I storm through the days feeling irritable and vulnerable. I bark orders and pick fights over trivial things like forgotten coffee cups and misplaced marker caps and towels that don't get hung back on their hooks. I'm a 100% hot mess. And it ain't pretty, I'll admit it.

I can feel myself over reacting, and in the deepest part of my heart I know I'm wrong to do it, but the bigger, louder voice spoken by my hormones is sometimes too strong to withstand. So I snap! I harangue the kids and hassle my husband and hate myself while doing it. It's a vicious cycle of self pity and victimization and irritation and lost tempers and guilty consciences. 

Hormones are a beast, y'all. I've changed my lifestyle and eating habits and started taking some supplements that have helped me tackle these mood wrecking monsters TREMENDOUSLY. I feel better now than I ever have, but I still have to work to keep my guard up. PMS may try to convince me that I hate my life, but I've been given far too many blessings to allow myself to believe it. 

My husband is gearing up to face some long, tough days in the next week or so and it'll come just around the same time that I'll be looking to fight some long, tough days of my own. I'll survive by straight up coasting through some days, loosening the reigns of my clean freak/control freak nature, making tons of skinny chocolate and brewing loads of coffee. And I'll make myself go back and re-read this post to remind me that the world doesn't revolve around my monthly calendar.

PMS can make me feel like a victim BUT PMS IS A BIG, FAT LIAR. So there.