I feel like a juggler in a cheap circus. I've always been someone who is on top of things; has everything under control.

Control freak, some may say.

Most of the time I am even one step ahead of where I need to be. Just barely ahead, but enough to ensure that the illusion of being in control remains intact. It's a complicated house of cards that probably teeters on the brink of collapsing more often than I care to admit.

Shampoo bottle empty? There's a new one already in the cabinet. Last roll of toilet paper? No, I already stocked up. Permission slip? Turned in early. Bought it/mailed it/paid it/vaccinated it/had it removed.

Done. Because that's how I roll.

Not last week.

I'm not even sure I can pinpoint the exact day and time that things began to unravel, but by Friday night I was ready for a do-over. Start back on Monday, try it all again.

Each thing by itself was small, relatively insignificant. But because of my control-freak-ish-ness, the sum of all these things made me feel like Dorothy when her house was spinning in that twister. Yet on the outside, I'm sure nobody could even tell that things were unraveling.

What's up with that? Why is it so important to me that I appear to be in control, even when my head is spinning around, bills are accidentally overlooked, and the hampers are overflowing?

I think it's my seventeen years of training as a mom.

See, when you're the mom you just can't let those little people think you aren't in control. The minute they sense panic or fear, they start blowing on your house of cards, slowly taking it down. And nothing good can come from that.

So when I forgot to attend the important meeting at school, didn't mail the birthday card, neglected to plug in the crock pot, forgot the paperwork, accidentally cancelled the newspaper subscription, overpaid the doctor's bill, and forgot to return my friend's phone call nobody was the wiser. Life went on, everyone was fed and cared for, and somehow even the newspaper continued to appear on the driveway.

It all turned out just fine. Really, it did.

But we control freaks don't like weeks like that.

So I am rebuilding my house of cards and starting fresh today; a new month has to be a good omen.

But just in case, I bought an extra bag of dog food and a case of toilet paper.

 Sherri Kuhn is a wife and mother, writer, lover of wine and cheese, coffee fanatic, and sometimes exerciser.  She writes at Old Tweener, a place that’s sometimes funny, often sarcastic, and requires tissues once in a while. She writes about raising teenagers, the craziness of being a middle-aged woman, the perils of a clean home, wistfulness over babies, and anything else that makes her laugh (or cry) in the years between changing diapers and wearing them. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.