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My dog loves to whine.   It's not that she's neglected, starved  or in need of anything.  She's just a whiner.  The vet likes to say that whiny dogs are anxiety ridden, always worried about being left alone or not being fed or loved enough, so they whine and whine to get our attention.  Sometimes she starts out with a whimper and if I don't respond by speaking to her or coming to her right away she increases her volume until the neighbors across the street probably begin to wonder if she's being strung up by her hind legs.  I assure you she's not.  You see, she's still got quite a lot of puppy in her and if I take my eyes off of her for a second serious damage could occur.  She's a poor decision maker, deciding to eat whatever toy she finds on the floor (Legos are a recent favorite) dig through the garbage or chew up the furniture. Once she even ate a big chunk out of the wall.  Because of her mischievousness, I often have to put her in her nice cozy crate when I'm so busy I can't give her my undivided attention--like during homework time with my son or when I'm in the shower, and especially when I leave the house.  In time she settles, circles down into her doggy bed and watches me with those pitiful puppy-dog eyes as I go out the front door.  Sometimes as I turn the lock I hear one loud, mournful wail before she resigns herself to be content with her surroundings.

Sometimes I like to whine too.  Times like this morning, for instance, when my dialysis machine is taking too long to finish its work and the pain from having it drain the fluid from my abdomen is excruciating AND its time to get my boy up and ready for school.  Penny is whining loudly to go outside and the OTHER dog is scratching and whimpering at my bedroom door, hoping I'll forget about my kid and hop up to get him his breakfast, pronto.

On top of everything else my boy is not cooperative.  He lies in bed like a mannequin, forcing me to sit him in an upright position and strip his clothes off before he wakes up enough to get dressed--then promptly lie back down and fall back asleep.

I tell my boy, "Go get your shoes on." Then I go into my bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed.  When I come out and into the living room, I find him sitting on the bottom stair, head rested on his knees with his shoes still sitting on the floor at his feet.  Resigned to his resignation to not cooperate, I put his shoes on him.  Then I make the oatmeal while both dogs are still hollering at me to hurry up with the kid already so I can take care of them.

After he eats I tell my boy, "Go get your jacket and book bag, it's time to go."  Then I go put my shoes on and grab my jacket and gloves.  When I walk back into the living room, he's lying on the couch.  The book bag and jacket are still hanging on the coat rack.  Losing my patience, I pull his feet off the couch and stand him up, telling him firmly, "Put your jacket on now!"  Finally he does something I've asked him to do.

On Planet Mom, you can always expect the unexpected.

Once in the car I say, "buckle up!"  Just as I always do.  When I turn and look at him, my boy is sitting in a haze, no seat belt attached.  "Look," I say.  I don't know what planet you think this is, but I'm telling you right now that this is Planet MOM and YOU are going to do what I say.  Put your seat belt on!"  He did.

He was late for school, of course, and as I dropped him off at the front entrance, I swear, the School Resource Officer who stands outside and waits for all the stragglers to make it in safely looked at me scornfully and shook his head as if to say, "What a shitty mother!"  Under my breath I say, "Suck it, Officer Safety Patrol." And I drive away feeling a deep, heart-wrenching, soul screaming whine well up inside me.  Honestly, I wanted to howl.

I came back home to a  sink full of dishes that I didn't dirty and a laundry room piled to the gills with laundry that, in all honestly, I think might belong to a hobo or something.  Seriously, where does it all come from?  It's trash day and the garbage is all still sitting beside the house but I'm in a hurry so I don't take the time to roll it to the curb, telling myself I'll do it on my way out the door to work.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't.  

It doesn't help that I had dreams all night that left me feeling the emptiness of loss at my core as soon as I woke up an hour before the alarm clock said I had to.  I suppose it is never a good thing to lie in bed and wish for too long, that your slumbering reality were still your waking reality.  That kind of thinking gets your head stuck in the past and then you start to feel like everything you ever loved is suddenly missing.  I tried to make myself think about all the good things in my life, tried to implore the power of positive thinking, the peacefulness of prayer, but nothing really worked for me this time.  Then the pain of the machine doing its job, the refusal of my son to go with the flow and the yelping of my dogs suddenly started and I...well I lost my shit for a while.

"All I want is a little help!" I thought.  "I just want someone to be around, even if all they can do is give me a big hug and tell me to calm the heck down."  I thought. I said to God, "What's the deal here?  I'm only one person, you know.  Hello? Remember me?"  I'd like to tell you that I suddenly felt His peacefulness sweep over me and comfort me with indescribable relief, but I'd be lying if I said that.  I felt no such thing, just a whole lot more alone and forgotten, really.

Now I have to get ready for work, and I'm still squelching that huge, final mournful wail deep inside me as I give in to the day and accept that these are my circumstances for now.  This is my life and like it or not, this is how it's gotta be.  Because apparently I'm a poor decision maker and for my own safety and the sanity of others, I probably need to be confined to Planet MOM.