Stress Antidote

Christmas is two weeks from today. Yes, I’ll admit that Irish dance is not the only reason that this fact causes my otherwise calm demeanor to crumble into the horrors of a procrastinator’s panic attack. But our first ever Oireachtas experience last weekend DID throw me for a ringer.

So this morning I brought my 8-year-old to the bus stop and my 4-year-old to preschool, and headed to Target with the lofty goal of making serious headway on the shopping list. Flying through the toys, books, and children’s clothing sections, shopping cart tilting on two wheels as I rounded the corners, I was suddenly drawn to a very attractive display stand, covered with red and green circles. I looked closely, not quite sure that my eyes could trust the exciting gift before me….

Could this really be possible? Had I just discovered the magical antidote to my stress for the next two weeks, packaged appropriately in a gold bag??? Yes! M-n-M’s now come in dark chocolate!!!

Armed with encouragement of this new health food, I drove back to the preschool to pick up Ellie. Standing in the hallway with the other mothers, Ellie’s preschool teacher shared with me the morning’s activity of answering the question of the day. Posted on the board was the question, “Is your Christmas tree decorated yet?” and each child was asked to appropriately place their name tag in either the “yes” column or the “no” column. Ellie stood looking perplexed for quite some time, then announced that she doesn’t have a Christmas tree in her house yet because there are still pumpkins sitting on the front steps.

After dodging the pitying glances of the other mothers, I decided that those dark chocolate M-n-M’s needed a bit more help in order to reap the full benefit of the healthful antioxidants. Therefore, I plan to drink plenty of red wine while eating them…