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I opened Parker's bedroom door to smell that "golfish death" odor hanging in the air. But here's the tricky part: Daffodil isn't dead yet. She's laying on the top of the water, slowly gasping.

In one hour, from 4:00 to 5:00, on the afternoon of March 2, 2009 flipped my life over. I lost my position at the advertising agency, a place I worked for twelve years. I'd been working since I was 15. I'd never been without a job since McDonalds in 1985. I love working. I like the structure and rules and work gave that to me. Now there was no structure, no rules, no expectations. I was floating without an anchor, totally shocked. I was lost.

For eight years I've been hanging around campfires telling my story about how I survived postpartum psychosis. I am woman! Hear me ROAR!

Only now I'm realizing two things:
A). I'm actually not able to diagnose myself.
B). It appears I had a big scoop of postpartum OCD, drizzled with some depression and a possible sprinkle of psychotic tendency. Apparently, I'm comparing myself to a pospartum sundae for some reason.

My friend Emma just called me. She's a great gal - kind, generous and funny to boot. Anyway, we were at a friend's house together yesterday and Emma just called to talk to me about it. She began with, 'I didn't know whether I should tell you this or not, because it might sound weird...', so I wasn't quite sure what to expect!

Not very often, but every once in a while, I close the boys bedroom doors at the end of the day and think, 'I'm doing ok, I was a good Mom today'. Yesterday, WAS NOT one of those days. We were over at the neighbours house playing after school and the boys were in the backyard while I chatted with the moms in the front. All of a sudden, I heard Zachary screaming, not in pain, but in annoyance, which he does sometimes when he gets frustrated and doesn't know what to say. So, I went around back and talked to him. 'Zachary, we can't just scream at people, please say you are sorry'.

After much research, discussion and internal debate, I took my sons to get the Swine flu shot last week. Because of Joshua's 'rocky start' in the NICU, he is considered an 'at risk' child and my pediatrician felt that it was incredibly important for him to be inoculated. So, I ended up calling the local 'swine flu' hotline every day for about a month until I found a place where we could get it done.

Can someone please tell me what is so delicious about cat food? Because it’s totally unfathomable to me. Joshua, the 19 month old is in the 10th percentile for weight. That’s good actually, because a couple months ago, he fell off the charts completely and I had to give him these supershakes, with high protein and fat in them to get him back up there weight-wise. He is such a picky eater that I find myself wanting to pull my hair out daily. Hates all fruits except bananas and vegetables – forget out it. Not gonna happen! But cat food?

I was running errands with my daughters, ages nine and seven, this week. I gave them gum to keep them preoccupied so they wouldn't realize we had three more stops to make before going home. I looked in the rearview mirror ten minutes later to see them not chewing gum. I asked, "Did you swallow your gum?"
The both looked at each other in a conspiracy, like, "Should we tell her?"

I started getting alarmed. Was it in their hair? Did they throw it out the window at the police car next to us at the red light? Was it on the window? Were they choking on it? Where did the fucking gum go??

Demian's b-day today and he's traveling to Richmond. All my plans gone to shit. What's that my father-in-law always says?

Great day today. Though it started off bad. Today was Joshua's neurosurgeon check-up. Routine, really. Has to be done every six months to check on the shunt - right? Routine my ass. It doesn't matter how much time has passed, or how well he's doing. I wake up on the morning of that appointment, after a crappy night's sleep, to feeling the claws of anxiety. I'm panicky. The 'what-ifs' come back. What if I've missed something? What if his shunt is malfunctioning? What if he needs surgery today?