Friday, August 28, 2015

Betty Brinn

Back in February, it was Girl Scout cookie time. Maggie was her troop's top seller, and she was motivated by the possibility of earning a family pass to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum. She made (actually far surpassed!) her goal and we received our pass in the mail in early May. If you remember correctly, we also received a new baby in the house about the same time. So... with only a few days left of summer vacation, we packed up and headed to the museum with our pass for the first time this past week. The bigger girls have been here before- and LOVE it. Hattie got to experience the museum for the first time- and to be honest? I didn't think we'd get her to leave! I'm looking forward to taking her a few more times this fall when the big girls are in school. Here are a few fun pictures from our day!

Hattie was SERIOUS about the grocery store. Here she is, unloading her cart... 

 Waiting patiently with load #2...

 Lucy the bus driver!

 Hey- she picked up Gramma!
 Hattie.... still shopping! 

 Lucy thought she was pretty cool on this motorcycle!
And....more shopping!
 
 Unloading the cart... AGAIN!

 Maggie and Lucy as a pit crew

 This is one of many play phones in different areas of the museum. My mom and I noticed there was always a long line of kids waiting to play on the phones... and then realized most of them had never seen or used a wall mounted phone before!

 Lucy LOVED this! She took the muffler on and off this car about 10 times. Great Grampa Milan would be proud!

 Banker Maggie says, "Would you like to take out a loan?" 

How to get Lucy and Hattie (who are notorious for arguing 24 hours a day) to get along? Let them smooth fake "cement" together!
 
Lucy inside the beehive!

 Lucy and Hattie drive the work truck

 Maggie on the beehive

 Love this kid! 

 Lucy and Hattie learn how to shingle a roof.... we needed this skill LAST summer!
Lucy!
 
 Hattie sends dad an "email" 


 Oh, look who woke up from her nap to enjoy the museum, too!
 Big muscles!
 This was my favorite part... a huge Scrabble board! I want one!

Lucy got to drive the ambulance, too!

Monday, August 10, 2015

The Worst Kind of Day...

Ugh. I have something to confess. Something horrible and terrifying and heartbreaking and scary. 

Last week I forgot my baby in the car. 

Yup. I did. Thank goodness it all ended well, but it was hands down the most awful day of my life since becoming a mommy over eight years ago. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I've seen this meme show up in my Facebook newsfeed a handful of times in the past two days:

And it's not fair. 

Maybe it's been all the horrible news stories of late about babies being left in hot cars and dying, but this has always been a fear of mine. When Maggie was a baby, Dan was responsible for taking her to my mom and dad's house on Fridays on his way to work. It was a change in routine for him on that particular day, so (unbeknownst to him) I would call my mom and "check in" about 8:00 every morning... just to make sure that she actually made it there and wasn't still strapped in the backseat of 
his truck. Would Dan ever INTENTIONALLY leave our baby in the car? Absolutely not. But, better safe than sorry.... so I made that phone call every week. Of course, since I have the kids in the car with me 98% of the time and getting them in and out safely is such a normal part of my routine, I was never overly concerned that *I* would be the one to "forget" a kid in the car.... until last week. 

I had taken the big girls and the baby out with me to run a few errands and left Hattie at home napping with Dan. It was hot, so while we were out and about on the far side of town, I thought we should stop at my parents' house to water their flowers while they were up north. I pulled in the driveway, hopped out with the big girls, and got to work. My parents have A LOT of flowers and the girls were running around and helping themselves to cherry tomatoes from Papa's garden. After about 10 minutes,I finally wound up the hose, rounded up the girls, and headed into the garage for a bottle of water. That's when I heard it. The faintest of baby cries. Actually, a painful, hysterical baby wail. And then, it hit me. I flew to the van, opened the door, and found Ruby... red-faced, sweaty and bawling. I frantically unbuckled her from her carseat, picked her up, and... lost it. I sat on the driveway with her in my arms, trying to soothe her and sobbed... I apologized and cried and apologized and cried and apologized some more while I nursed her. The big girls watched with big, scared eyes as the enormity of what could have happened hit them, too. Once she was calmed down, I kissed her a million times, whispered "I'm sorry" a million more times, rubbed my nose on her sweet baby head, and strapped her back into her seat. I drove home crying, silently thanking God and simultaneously screaming at myself for being so careless and stupid. 

Needless to say, she got extra cuddles for the rest of the day, and I am pretty sure I got next to NO sleep that night. I kept replaying the incident in my head and couldn't shake the "what ifs?" that kept rolling through my brain. What if one of the girls had to go inside to go to the bathroom? What if I had stopped to talk to one of the neighbors? What if I had grabbed a bag to pick a handful of tomatoes, too? What if... I had only been a minute longer???? It's been over a week. It still makes me sick to my stomach to think of what could have been. I am forever thankful that it isn't. 

Why am I telling you this? Well, because of pictures like the one above.  Because of the comments that followed it: 

"Don't understand how people can forget their kids I think about my kids every damn second of everyday I even dream about them they are my life"

"I am a great mother and I've never left my kids in the car without air conditioning. I can't understand how you can be that engulfed into a conversation to forget what takes us 10 months to carry in our bodies and then the pain to deliver. You can forget keys, money, purse but not my child."

"There is no valid excuse for completely forgetting your child. It's murder. If you can't prioritize and protect a living person, you shouldn't be allowed to have custody of any children. I'm tired of reading all the excuses for over 30 horrific deaths a year of innocent babies- it's unacceptable and these "parents" should be in jail. We are complicit as a society when we reserve judgment for something so absurd and horrible."

Stuff like this breaks my heart- not only because I feel as though they are talking to me (To be honest? Those words are no worse than what I have already said to myself in my own head. I was mad and sad and angry and horribly, horribly guilty) but because every day people expect moms to be PERFECT. Granted, leaving your baby in the car ranks a little higher on the "oops!" scale than say, forgetting to put mayonnaise on your kid's ham sandwich, but it happens. I did everything "right." I leave my diaper bag/purse on the floor next to her seat. I wasn't distracted with my phone. I didn't purposely leave her there because I knew it would be a "quick" stop. I legitimately FORGOT her. I'm not making excuses for myself because I KNOW I'm a good mom. A damn good mom. But I'm human. For those of you who want to judge me for this, so be it... but please know that I won't be judging if it ever happens to you. 

Ruby says, "Pppbbbllllttttt to all the haters!"