On Motherhood, Insanity, and ignoring the kids

Today the nagging has been constant. I ask my kids not to whine, but it does no good. My 3-year old can't find his sunglasses and he has developed this slidey-whiney tone that is going to turn my brain to mush. We are headed to a birthday party this afternoon, and my precious 5-year-old has been asking every 5-15 minutes all day long, "is it time to go yet?" My 2-year old seems to think I am a jungle gym, even when I am cooking. Between that and the incessant requests for chocolate milk, crackers, and diaper changes, and nursing the baby, I cannot keep a constant stream of thought in my head about what needs to come next in my day. About a half hour ago, as I realized I have a very big head ache coming on, it occurred to me that this is what leads to insanity in mothers; we can't think in a straight line for long enough to get anything productive done thanks to all the detours and stop signs our kids put up each time they ask for something. The only solution is to occasionally and temporarily ignore our favorite little people, just for a little while! So if you see a lady at the grocery store whose children are wild enough they seem to belong in the zoo, and yet she is the very picture of concentration as she puts her goods into her cart, know that she is in survival mode. If we didn't ignore our kids now and then, all mothers would have mush brains or go insane, and we can't have that, now can we!