Breakdown

Last week, I thought my brain was going to explode into a million pieces. At the worst possible time in my life, I got a jury duty summons. Now, most of you might not think that was something to panic over. Some of you might even say, "Yippee! I get paid for this!" Me? I hate even the thought of jury duty. In the good ole state of Colorado, there is no job exemption from this duty. That means homeschool moms, too. How asinine. Why do they think we are homeschool moms in the first place? Don't they realize we are the only caregivers of our children and that our husbands would have to take the day off to take care of them while we sit on our butts in a courthouse? No, I do not like jury duty. I had asked my son to be my legs for me and go get the mail from the mailbox at the end of the drive. He came back in with it all and I slowly went through it. When I came to the jury duty summons, I thought I was seeing things. I did a double take. I immediately ripped it open looking for the part that says homeschool moms are exempt from this atrocious duty. Slowly realizing that there is no such part, the first stage of my panic began. I called the jury duty commissioner. I explained to her that I was very pregnant and by the time I have to show up I will have a very new baby. She told me to get a doctor's excuse and send it in. So, that day I went to see my midwife. She graciously gave me the excuse and I put it in my purse. Following that, I had to take Nat to his bagpipe lessons. We had a little time to kill, so Caleb decided to come and sit in the front seat. Unknowingly to me, he had kicked the doctor's excuse onto the floor of the van. I grabbed my purse from him since he was sitting on it and looked inside to make sure the paper was still safe and sound. When I didn't see it in the purse, on the seat, or between the seats, I looked out the open window. That's when I had a hormonally pregnant breakdown. I told the boys to get out of the van and look for it outside. The poor kids looked everywhere while I roamed the parking lot in the van with tears running down my cheeks. I'm sure the people who saw me thought I needed a Xanax. I even thought I needed a Xanax. I stopped the van to have a good cry even though I knew it was probably freaking out my two youngest ones. During my crying jag, I looked down at the floor one more time and saw a piece of paper. I turned it over and what do you know. Feeling like a fool, I let the boys know I had found it and Nat went in for his lesson. The next day, I made sure I had mailed the doctor's excuse before the mail carrier came and even bothered the jury commissioner again by emailing her and asking that she let me know if I am exempt from this duty. I put it at the back of my mind and yesterday received her reply that I am indeed exempt from this with a good excuse. Duh. A week after the episode in the van, Justin was still talking about Mommy crying in the van.