My Worst Nightmare Coming True

I sure love this little girl. She brings out so many emotions in me from bust-a-gut laughter to pull-out-my-hair frustration and everything in between. Since Makayla started school, Ellie has become my little shadow. She follows me around the house as I complete my daily chores. She asks to cook with me. She wants to put make-up on when I do mine. She wants to curl her hair when I curl mine. Sometimes she even insists on wearing the same color shirt as me. She's my little mini-me.

So imagine the sheer terror that filled me when she got lost over the weekend. We were at a huge park. There were 6 soccer games and 1 foot ball game going on, with additional players and their parents waiting around the practice field. There were literally hundreds of people around us. I was taking care of Kimberly and when I turned around to check on my older girls, Ellie was nowhere to be found.

I thought she was with Makayla checking out the horses in the field behind us. Nope. I stood up and looked around. Couldn't see her. Hollered at Kasey to see if he knew where she was. When he said he hadn't seen her in a little while, I started to get really nervous. After looking up and down the sidelines with no sign of her, I started to panic. I grabbed Kimberly, and Kasey grabbed Makayla. We went in opposite directions looking for a little brown-haired girl in a black & orange shirt.

After each of us made a lap around the park without seeing her, we started asking help of the people around us. There were a dozen or more of us searching among hundreds of people. Kasey told me to start asking everyone. But every time I asked someone if they had seen her, I started to cry. And every time those people told me they hadn't seen her, I cried harder.

I tried not to think that someone had taken her. I tried so hard to remain positive that we would find her. But with every gut-wrenching minute that passed, I got more and more worried.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of searching, I spotted her across one of the soccer fields cradled tightly in Kasey's arms. I ran faster than I have ever run before. I grabbed Ellie and held her close to me and just sobbed. In that moment I felt so many emotions: happiness for finding her, anger for her running away; fear for what could have happened, comfort for what didn't.

Since that incident I have scarcely let Ellie out of my sight. I can't bear to think of all the awful things that could have happened to her. And today when she left my sight in the store, those same feelings of complete terror overwhelmed me. You may have thought I was a paranoid mother before, but you haven't seen anything yet.

On Bambi and Blogging

Generally speaking, I don't like the movie Bambi. I watched it recently with my girls and just didn't care for it. I do, however, like that famous line from Thumper: If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all.

It is because of that quote that I am taking a little break from blogging. I've just been in this kind of negative mood for the past little while. And instead of complaining, like has been my tendency in the past, I just decided that maybe I won't write for a little bit.

I don't want to look back in a year or two or five and read post after post of woe-is-me negativity. So basically, life sucks right now. I'm working on it. And while I'm working on it, I'm choosing the "don't say nothin' at all" approach.

8 Months and Crawling

I am so unbelievably excited that Kimberly is crawling! So I have to watch her a little bit closer, and I have to make sure things are picked up a little better. She can follow me around the apartment while I get my housework done. And most importantly, she is happy without me carrying her 24 hours a day!!

I feel like I have a little part of my life back. Now we just have to make it through the next 3-4 months of nursing and I really will be me again.

Month 8 has brought some other fun things besides crawling. This month Kimberly learned how to say "mama" (her first word) and "dada" (Kasey's favorite). I think it's kind of funny, though, that she screams mama when she is mad, and smiles and says dada when she is happy.

She dances when she hears music. She loves books, babies, and Ritz crackers. She recently discovered herself in the mirror and I often catch her crawling over to find her "friend."

Can't wait to see what new adventures month 9 will bring.

(Not quite sure why it turned out so dark. It looks fine when I play it on my computer. Sorry!)

After 7 Years I've Learned How to Get My Way

But in reality, it didn't take me seven years to learn. I've just perfected the art of getting my way.

Example: I told Kasey this evening that I want a new camera for Christmas, but I don't want to buy it myself. Because let's face it, playing Santa for yourself just isn't as much fun as when someone else does it for you.

Anyway, he made a pointed glance at my camera and asked, "Don't you already have a camera?"

"Yes, but I want a new one."

Then I went into detail about which one I wanted and why and how much it would cost Santa.

He just stared at me. At which point I pulled out the big guns.(no pun intended) "You have 8 guns that all do the same thing, so don't tell me that I can't have 2 cameras."

He turned around and walked out of the room because he knew all too well that I had won this discussion. A few minutes later he came back and said, "When we go to Costco tomorrow you can show me which one you want."

Yessss!! I love when I get my way!

Thoughts from the Shower

I have some of my best thoughts in the shower. It's the one place where I can get away from everything. It's often standing under the hot water that I have my best inspirations and deepest thoughts.

So, my thoughts from this morning's shower went something along these lines: I feel like I have difficult babies. Other people have told me that I have difficult babies. I guess that makes me feel a little better when I have a little freak-out moment after enduring hours of crying.

I think that babies can sense when a mother is stressed out and it affects their mood. The question, then, is this. . . Am I stressed out because I have cranky babies, or are my babies cranky because they have a stressed out mother?

Hmmm. . . seems like one of those "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" kind of questions.

Whining

I'm in such a whiny mood tonight.

I have a ridiculously long to-do list for this week. Some of it is piddly little things like picking up the dry cleaning. Other stuff is long and involved like canning fruit, which is bound to be an all-day project. Running errands, typing this, emailing that, writing a talk, learning some new music, preparing a craft for activity day girls, calling this person, arranging that meeting.

All this on top of my regular to-do list stuff--cooking, cleaning, raising children. . . you know.

Ugh! I don't want to do any of it right now. I want to sit and read my book or watch a good movie and eat a yummy treat whilst lounging in my pajamas. In fact, that's what I want to do for the entire 5 days that Kasey will be home. I don't want to be a responsible adult. I want to do what I want to do and not what is required of me. I want to sleep in, take my kids to the park, and eat ice cream for lunch.

And to top off my whiniest post to date, I just found out that Kasey, after traveling 13 hours through the night, is required to take a 4 hour class before he can come home tomorrow. What the h***!

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I think sometimes a girl just needs to get some things off her chest before she can buckle down and get to work.

Laundry, here I come.

High Drama in Kindergarten

Today is only the second day of school, and I've already had a meeting with Makayla's teacher and the principal.

Yesterday when I went to pick up Makayla from school, her teacher, Mrs. E, asked if she could talk with me. Uh oh! I thought. She told me that Makayla refused to go to music class. Whenever she would try to take Makayla in the classroom, Makayla would grab onto her and hide her head. When they pushed a little further, Makayla actually started to cry saying it was too scary.

I was a little confused by this because Hello! she was talking about my daughter who sings in her sleep (yes, I actually caught her doing that) and while she goes potty.

Mrs. E said they have a male music teacher and his appearance can be a little intimidating to some kids, but they've never had a problem this extreme before. She offered for me to meet Mr. R with Makayla to see if that would help calm her fears. We started walking that direction, but as soon as Makayla found out where we were going, she stopped dead in her tracks. No, no, no! No Mom! I can't go over there. It's too scary! Please mom, No!

So I left her on the playground while I met Mr. R. Admittedly, I was taken back by his appearance at first: he's a little taller than me, overweight, goatee, tinted glasses, feminine voice, and originally from India. It took me 30 seconds to discover that he is one of the most delightful people I have ever met.

Mr. R, Mrs. E, and I discussed Makayla and some ideas to help her get over her fears.

This morning when I walked Makayla to her class, Mrs. E told me that she and Mr. R had talked with the principal, Mr. S, and that he would like to meet with me this morning if possible. He and I talked about what happened yesterday and brainstormed to figure out how to go about this situation.

Answer: He showed me the schedule and I'm going to go into music class with her next week. Hopefully, with me there, Makayla will feel a little safer and realize that music class is fun and that Mr. R is not someone who should be feared. At least that's the plan.

I came away from the school today with a few thoughts. 1-I'm really impressed with her school that they deal with a problem head on and waste no time in trying to find a solution. 2-I love that they include me right away instead of just trying to fix the problem themselves and possibly creating bigger problems. 3-I like that they didn't push Makayla to do something that she was obviously uncomfortable with. I know she has to go to class in the future, which I totally expect, but the fact that they care enough to respect her 5-year-old self speaks volumes to me.

So even though we are dealing with issues on the first day of school, I am so glad that she is in kindergarten and already learning valuable life lessons.

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Makayla on her first day. She really was excited to go. Unfortunately, the picture where she was smiling turned out blurry. Don't mind the syrup spot on her pants. Today I was smarter and had her get dressed after she ate breakfast.