Why are you asking?

I experienced my first migraine headache when I was in 5th Grade. I remember it clearly. I was sitting in Mrs. Puffer's English class and she was giving a lecture on something. My eyes started freaking out when I got to school. It felt like I was on the inside of an old TV screen. Everything was fuzzy and oddly distorted, which to my 10-year-old mind, was very disconcerting. However, Mrs. Puffer terrified me, so I said nothing. During the middle of her lecture, a short time after the visual distortions began, the nausea hit. I knew I was going to throw up. I tried and tried to hold it in, to keep it from happening. I clearly remember listening to her drone on and on about something inconsequential, praying to the Gods that she would just shut up so I could run to the bathroom. I knew better than to interrupt her, I was terrified of her wrath at the best of times. If I were to just jump up and run to the bathroom I was certain she would kill me, so for what felt like an eternity, I just kept trying to prevent myself from throwing up. I lost the battle. I threw up all over her classroom. Ironically, she got mad at me for not interrupting her and running to the bathroom. At the time, I just thought she would have been mad no matter what I did. Like I said, she terrified me.

Now that I'm older and have kids of my own, I realized recently that I've become a Mrs. Puffer at home. It is the only explanation I have for the reason my kids do this obnoxious thing they do. Lately, when they have to go to the bathroom, instead of just going to the bathroom and taking care of business, they dance in front of me yelling "I've gotta go potty!!! I've gotta go potty!!!" waiting for me to say "So go to the freaking bathroom!!!" Seriously, they don't have to ask permission to go use the bathroom in their own homes! So why, oh why do they do this? Every second they waste prancing around in front of me, singing their "potty" song, is a second they risk peeing on my floor. The other day, Aubrey ran out of her bedroom and began the dance while I was seated down on the sofa working on my computer. That's when it hit me. Somehow, I have become Mrs. Puffer and the kids would rather pee in their pants then risk me being upset with them. BJ and I have tried to explain to them that they need to just use the restroom, and stop asking for permission to do so first. We've tried and tried, but the power of Puffer is great. I'm not even sure what I did to make them start this ridiculous habit. I wish I knew. I wish I could stop it, because one of these days they are going to pee on the floor during their crotch grabbing potty dance while they wait for me to yell "so go to the bathroom already!!"