1. Insist on talking to your family only in pig Latin/like one of the Wonder Pets/in falsetto. If that doesn't make them leave you alone, start singing Broadway show tunes like a Wonder Pet.
2. Buy the cheapest perfume you can find. When kids get on your last nerve, spritz liberally. (On you, not them.)
3. Whip out your child's IEP and announce that you are going to do a theatrical reading of it. When everyone flees, go take a bath.
4. Alternately, offer to do an interpretive dance inspired by the IEP.
5. Ask, in an entirely too chipper voice, "Anyone like to come with me to CVS? I need to research laxatives!"
6. Tell your child's physical/speech/occupational therapist that as much as you want to sit through the session with her, you need to excuse yourself to have a nervous breakdown BUT you will definitely be done by the time the 45 minutes are up, not to worry.
7. When the local cable channel airs your town hall meeting, settle down and start furiously taking notes, not looking up until your family has left the room. Then click over to HGTV.
9. This tactic require's a friend's help, a length of heavy rope and some KrazyGlue. Or, really, just the friend will do. Have one show up at your door and announce that her dog is having puppies and she desperately needs your help. No matter if she does not actually have a dog, or that she moved across country five years ago.
10. Tell everyone you are going to do 18 loads of laundry, and who would like to help? Proceed downstairs alone. Pull out book and read.
11. Find a supermarket or gym that offers child care. Deposit your child there, making a mad dash out before staffers realize he has special needs (but being sure to leave a note behind full of instructions, of course). Cower in the freezer section or behind a piece of exercise equipment.
12. Help your family understand just how much of a better mom you are when you have time for yourself by purchasing one of those airplane oxygen masks people regularly reference in that well-worn metaphor ("You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you can help others!"). Whip it out during dinnertime, when you have everyone's attention, and demonstrate the proper inhale/exhale technique. Even if your family does not get the gist of the metaphor, you will have at least gotten a chance to take some nice, deep breaths.
13. Sign up for an upcoming conference—a blogger one, The International UFO Conference and Film Festival, a conference about conferences. Any will do!
14. Ask your husband if he'd lend you a hand with the bikini wax, or if he'd prefer if you just dashed out to get one.
15. Alternately, ask him if he'd like to come shoe-shopping with you... to find ones that will fit your child's foot braces.
16. Offer to play hide and seek with the kids. Then only play the "hide" part.
17. Actually inform everyone that you need a break, and that phone operators are standing by should anyone need assistance with something vital like, say, where the scented magic markers are or how much time to set "defrost" on the microwave. And then, woman, go take a break.
Image: Flickr/M.Marcus
