"From the title, I thought this was a book to help me deal with my brother's bi-polar disorder, because he's spiraling down very quickly and I needed immediate assistance. He's dead now, but man, this book was funny!" --Adam Heath Avitable, author of Avitable.com "This book is good birth control. It will also make you laugh like hell. You should buy it because it's hard to find that kind of combination without a medical prescription." --Jenny Lawson, TheBloggess.com "Shauna Glenn is from that rare breed of authors who can make you laugh until you cry even when she's writing about the most raw and visceral human emotions. Driven by heart and hilarity, RELATIVE INSANITY might just be Shauna's best novel yet." --Danny Evans, author of RAGE AGAINST THE MESHUGENAH

Relative Insanity

By Shauna Glenn

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Shauna Glenn
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-4895-6

Chapter One

"Mommy, Mommy? You awake? Mommy, MOMMY!"

I opened one eye. "What?" I said, waking from a dream where I was in the super market-topless, asking the produce guy to check out my melons.

"Well," said my second child, Lilly. She's our seven year old, blonde-haired, blue-eyed informant. If anything was going to go down in our house, you can rest assured that Lilly would be on it-CSI had nothing on this girl.

She continued, "Gracie went in the baby's room, woke her up and is feeding her bubble gum and Mountain Dew. And I know you don't allow us to have caffeine this early!" I told her that I was coming to tell you and she said, "Go on you little shrimp! Tell! See if I care!"

"Don't you think that's rude, Mommy?-calling me a shrimp? I can't help it if I'm short. I got that from you, right?"

She stood there, arms crossed, very officially, waiting for me to jump out of bed and pounce. All the while I was wondering if I lay still enough and didn't say anything, she would get bored and move on, I was even trying not to breathe. But she was standing there with her eyes so focused on the task at hand that I felt she had already won. Beaten down already, and what, only 6:08 on a Saturday morning. I pulled back the covers and eased my feet to the floor, my body willing me to stay in the bed-it's not time yet, it seemed to be screaming. As I got up, my husband (who conveniently sleeps through everything!) rolled over. I suddenly had the urge to punch him in the face. Instead I stuck my tongue out in his direction and followed the short informant down the hall toward the kitchen.

Why me? What did I ever do? I pay my taxes, I obey the law (except for the occasional speeding-okay maybe more than occasional, it's more like a part time job) and I vote like any good American. Why am I the constantly the target of these unprovoked Saturday morning attacks? Am I the only one on the planet who has to deal with this shit so early in the morning? And if I'm not, is there a support group I can join?

One thing I have considered doing is sedating the children. Not a lot. Just enough to have them snoring until a much more acceptable time on the weekends. I could market it to all the parents of young children around the world and become a billionaire. Oprah would have me on her show, claiming I had saved millions of families with my wonder drug for kids. We would have a catchy slogan and happy children singing the praises of my lullaby cocktail. There would t-shirts and bumper stickers and every mom in the world would have a permanent smile on her face. Women would have fewer wrinkles and gray hairs and even feel like having sex more often than on Arbor Day. I made a quick mental note to get to work immediately on my possible new venture.

As I continued to follow Lilly down the hall I realized that she was still giving me the 4-1-1 on exactly what had taken place in the few minutes that the three apples-of-my-bloodshot eyes had been up-and it sounded like a full day already.

"Uh-huh, okay I'm coming," I said. Stopping in the bathroom to pee was probably out of the question because if I don't seem somewhat concerned about operation "Mountain Dew," Lilly will continue to yap-yap-yap in my ear some more and if she doesn't stop, I fear I may lose my mind. She hurried off ahead of me warning Gracie, "Mommy's coming and you're in big trouble."

Big trouble. What does that mean anyway? Big trouble is robbing a bank or murdering someone, but to little kids-nine, seven, and nearly two, it means Mommy's going to put you in time out, or at the very worst, wash your mouth with soap for saying "shut up" or "stupid."

I entered the room of the scene of the crime.

"Mommy, I can explain." Ah. The future used car salesman of our family (we're so proud). Gracie, our oldest daughter, the actress, the princess, the "no one understands me" one of the bunch, began her morning ritualistic diatribe on how she has once again been the victim of wrongful accusation.

"You see, I thought I heard the baby crying, but when I went in there she heard me, I guess, and just woke up. So I couldn't just leave her there. I mean, what if she woke you and Daddy up? You really need your sleep, I know. You work really hard and I was just trying to handle it for you. I went to get her some milk, but we are out of milk so Mountain Dew was the next best choice. She really seems to like it. But that fartknocker, Lilly, had to go and wake you up and tell on me."

"I am not a fartknocker," Lilly cried out. "Mommy, did you hear what Gracie called me?"

"I heard, I heard. Now Gracie, please don't start the morning off by calling names. Tell Lilly you're sorry." I'm so beat down. And I felt a migraine coming on.

"Sorry," she said, not so convincingly, but good enough for me.

They were both looking at me, waiting to see what I was going to do. I didn't feel like doing anything, except screaming at the top of my lungs, packing a bag, and leaving on the next flight out of here. But, as the tallest one in the room, I guess it was up to me to handle this.

I looked at Lilly, standing there with her arms crossed with her eyes fixed on me like any minute I was going to spew biblical-like commandments, and Gracie, who had since become bored with this whole thing and was now staring at the television. So I said the only thing that came to mind. "Who wants breakfast?"

Lilly looked so disappointed that the hammer didn't come down on her big sister. She threw her hands up in the air and mumbled, "So not fair."

"I'm right there with you sister," I said off in her direction as I bent down and picked up the baby who was now tugging at my gown. Hannah is my twenty-month old and is the easiest and sweetest little girl. It's too bad she doesn't have a chance growing up here. I'm already putting some extra money aside for her therapy, which she will need a lot of. I held her close and whispered in her ear, "Get out of here while you still can." She just nuzzled my neck and giggled.

The big girls love their little sister. They are always willing to wake her up in the morning or from a nap, hold her for two seconds, then proceed to be utterly bored with her and hand her to me. Not before saying, "the baby wants you, Mommy."

So after serving breakfast and plopping the girls down in front of the television, I was finally able to have my much needed morning martini-I mean coffee. My husband, Tom, and I said we would never use the TV to baby sit the children. We do lots of things now we said we never would.

Before we had kids, we listened to our friends say the television was a lifesaver when they had things to do or wanted to get in some much needed rest or have sex for the first time in a month. We looked at each other like, we are so not going to be those people. I remember we actually laughed about it and I even felt sorry for them. Well, who's laughing now? I remember having a conversation with my mother before Tom and I had children and I told her my plan of having a perfectly run household and children who would be the most polite, cleanest and obedient of everyone we knew. The sound of her hysterical, almost psychotic laughing still echoes in my head. It's like a souvenir for my ignorance. Boy, for being college educated I was sure dumb.

You would think that by my third child I would have parenting down to a science. But every time I seem to get ahead,...