That funny feeling...again...

So I have that funny stomach-buzzing, tight-chest/heart anxiety feeling again. It's not a physical problem like I am going to have a heart attack or be sick or anything. I know what it is. It's anxiety. I can't pinpoint what caused it (causes it) but I can give some details on a bunch of little things that I think contribute to it...maybe.

I think it's at it's height right now because I need to run or do some exercise to burn off a bit of the frustration I've been feeling—except I can't because I have a client call in about 35 minutes (well, I did, til she postponed it another 15 minutes, and will probably then also be late, which means I could have ran or done some exercise and alleviated myself somewhat of this feeling, but now I can't because I'm on to writing to fill the time til the client call...ugh).

It may have started yesterday when I took my kid to this fancy-pants playground. She'd been there before and then she's been seeing it in a video she has and she kept asking to go. School was out yesterday, it was unseasonably warm, and so, we went. I was glad to take her somewhere special that she wanted to go, but I myself am not super crazy about the place. It's nice that it is 100% handicapped accessible, that's great. But it's, like, a 30-minute drive away and it's kind of in a shi-shi "neighborhood" (you can't really call it a "neighborhood" exactly because it's in a suburb with rolling hills and multi-acre lots, but anyway...) and there is always this weird mix of "the beautiful people"—moms with $700 riding boots, Chanel sunglasses, blown out hair and makeup—and then the nannies. Of course, there are "tourists" like me who go there, too, sometimes...and like this mom of a kid from my kid's old preschool who I saw and was trying to avoid.

So, I was having some fun walking around, following my kid around as she played "Froggy Fairytale Land," pretending she was a frog and leading me on a tour of her homeland, avoiding some bad guys here and there, achieving some little adventure goals along the way. Being with her lights up my heart I love to watch her facial expressions when she talks, love to hear her voice, her ideas.

I have to admit sometime I grow weary of her fantasy play, though, and I have to tell her so, now that she is getting older. She had woken up wanting to play mommy and baby animal, so we were hyenas. Then she wanted to be a pet cat that I was adopting. In the car ride to the playground, she was a dog who was going to marry our real dog. I couldn't take it anymore. It takes a lot of effort for the adult mind to engage in imaginative play like this while at the same time being grounded in the real world, taking care of the adult things that need to be taken care of like making and cleaning up breakfast, responding to emails, and...driving! I told her I feel kind of lonely sometimes and really would rather just talk to her as her real self. I told her I like her, I don't want to talk to a bunch of different pretend animals all day, that I want to talk to her. She seemed a little disappointed, but she "got" it and then I engaged her in a real-life conversation.

Back to the playground. After indulging in some fantasy frog play, she wanted me to play hide-and-seek. I generally don't like to play hide-and-seek at playground (or places other than our own yard) because after all, it's my job to watch my kid and know where she is and it makes me nervous to not know where she is. But, I gave in. The first couple hides I cheated and watched her, doing that thing all parents do where they pretend not to be able to find the kid and then they pop out and laugh and it is all so cute. The final hide, though, I actually lost track of her. It's a sprawling playground with lots of structures. So, I was wandering around looking for her for what felt like quite a while. I was a little panicky, but not extremely so. She's not a baby or toddler anymore. When I was her age, I probably went to the corner playground all by myself, so was it really a big deal that I couldn't find her for a few minutes? But, then I started to get a little panicky and mad. And to boot, the children of that mom from the preschool that I was trying to avoid were following me around. I don't know if they recognized me or my kid. I do know that they know I was looking for my child and they were tailing me, in a way I felt pretty sure was mocking or making fun of me. Maybe I am too sensitive or reading too much into it, but to me, it is rude and disrespectful to follow someone around this way. I never did like this mom (or her friend who was there with here awful kids too). It was so infuriating. I told the kids after several pauses and dirty looks to stop following me and that it was rude what they were doing. The friend of the mom collected them shortly after that, not acknowledging me, and it's not clear whether they noticed me or not. And shortly after that, I found my child. I scolded her mildly, but didn't want to take my frustration out on her. I just told her we weren't going to play hide-and-seek at playgrounds anymore and I told her about the awful children following me and she said "I'll protect you from them!" She is the best.

So, that caused me anxiety. Then, coming home, I had to make sure the child did her homework —which I'd lost cleaning off my desk of the gazillion papers the school sends home. Since I lost her homework, I had her make her own little booklet. All they do is color pictures and identify words with certain letters in them, a task which is far beneath my kid's level anyway, and I always make her do some element of extra work, like actually writing out the sentences in her own hand on lined paper, or something like that. While supervising her homework, I have to field a bunch of emails from an annoying person about issues that are really beyond my purview. But, I have this thing where I try to please and look like I am doing all I can to help. Still, when asked about things I don't really understand or control, it makes me very anxious.

Now, though, today, I am also feeling anxious because I miss her. Days when it is just me and her are even better sometimes than weekends with all three of us because they are like the golden baby days of..."just us"... I love having my husband home, too, and the time for myself that having him also parenting allows, but there is a different dynamic when he's home that's sometimes more chaotic (read, less under my control) than when it's just me and her. Now it's just me, alone, with my work and I miss her face and her words.