My Kids Can't Take Me Anywhere

I was feeling adventurous today after I picked Korban up from school, so I decided to run some errands with the kids. My kids were actually well behaved, but I had a Day. First I decided to go into Goodwill, just for fun.  (I love that place!)  When we pulled in, Korban pointed at their sign and said "The letter O!"  We've been working on letters/words, so I was very proud of him. I told him what a good job he did, and then asked him what the other letters were.  "Don't ask me!" he responded.  Ha!  I'm pretty sure he has no idea how funny he is.  I love it. So we poked around the store for a while, and I found a book I wanted to read and a couple of other small items, so we went on to check out.  The cashier was really friendly and sweet.  She complimented my kids, and asked Selah's name.  I told her, and she said she liked it.  She told me that if she ever has a little girl, she plans on naming her Luna.  "Oh, like in Harry Potter!" I said, immediately thinking of Luna Lovegood.  "Um, no.  As in, like, the moon," she said, looking at me strangely.  Oops.  Sometimes I forget not everybody is as big of nerd as I am!  Books are always in my head, and I tend to spout out weird facts at inopportune times. (Maybe it's those autistic traits that I'm sure I have!)  My husband would testify to this.  I drive him nuts sometimes, but only with certain things.  Harry Potter he liked, Twilight not nearly so much.  When he was driving home from Chattanooga this past weekend, the kids were wild, and I was doing animal flash cards with them to calm them down so they wouldn't distract him as he drove.  I held up a grizzly bear flash card and idly remarked "Grizzly bears are Emmett's favorite."  "Huh?  Emmett who?" Brad asked.  "Emmett Cullen.  Edward's brother," I said, like he should already know.  I seriously thought he was going to put me out and make me walk home.  But I disgress...Back to this afternoon.  Next we headed to Dollar Tree.  Did you know they have their own brand of Swiffer pads?  I didn't either until I saw their sales paper, but they do.  Eight pads compatible with the Swiffer mop for a buck.  I haven't used my Swiffer mop in forever, partly because I like my steam mop better and partly because I didn't want to keep spending all that money on replacement pads.  So I went to get some of those to see if I liked them.  The kids did well in the store, and so did I until we got back to the parking lot.  I am always nervous because both my kids are bolters and I'm so afraid they will get away from me.  I am even more nervous when I'm by myself because they have me outnumbered and I can't turn loose of them for a second.  So I opened the door, tossed my purse and keys into the driver's seat and then strapped my kids into their carseats right away.  Then I went to get in and discovered that my keys were nowhere to be found.  I vaguely remembered hearing a small clunking sound when I tossed the keys in, so I figured they fell into the floor.  So I spend a considerable amount of time with my head between the seats of my van and my rear end stuck up in the air, probably much to the dismay of the elderly couple parked next to me.  The keys were still hiding.  I righted myself and debated on calling my husband to tell him that I couldn't get home because I had lost my keys but were sure they were somewhere in the van.  Decided against that and prayed instead. Looked inside the part that my seat belt comes out of, and sure enough, I could see something shiny.  I had to lift up the driver's seat with one hand while shoving the other hand into that small area to wedge the keys out.  It took some maneuvering but I finally got it.  And right after that, a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while pulled up next to me, so if I hadn't have spent so much time digging around for my keys, I wouldn't have seen her.  So it all worked out!  I really needed some shredded cheese, and by that point I wasn't willing to go into Wal-Mart, so I drove to a small local grocery store that I thought I could get in and out of quickly.  When we went in, I noticed they had strawberries on sale.  Korban just finished off a pint of strawberries yesterday, so I bought two more. While I was doing that,  Korban noticed that they had watermelon, already cut into wedges and wrapped tightly with clear wrap.  It looked really good.  They even had a spork wrapped in with it!  Very convenient.  "Get you watermelon?"  he asked hopefully.  I went to check them them out.  "Pop brought us watermelon," he told me.  Now how do you say no to that?  Of course I bought him the watermelon.  Then I grabbed a couple bags of cheese and we checked out.  As we were leaving the store, I noticed a young man who worked there was following me.  I didn't think much of it, but he followed me out the door.  As I crossed the parking lot, he stayed several steps behind me.  I wasn't scared at all, but I did find his behavior curious.  I tossed several furtive glances over my shoulder, and he was staying with me.  I was shocked when I got to the van and he stopped behind me.  So I turned around to look at him and he was holding my groceries!  (Duh!)  I really thought they had put them in my buggy, but the only thing my buggy was full of was my children.  I'm not used to that kind of service.  I will definitely shop there again.  If they let me...I may have freaked out that poor bag boy.  ;)

Melissa Needs An Entourage

Today's Korban's school called and said he had thrown up in his classroom.  So I went to pick him up.  I called his dr's office on the way to make him an appointment.  He had only thrown up the one time, but he was acting really out of sorts.  I was worried because the flu has hit our area pretty hard, and most cases seem to be starting out with upset stomachs.  I picked him up and we went straight to the dr's.  Now let me mention that I used to always try to find some sort of help, like asking my mom to go with me or to keep whichever child wasn't sick in situations like this.  But I've tried to cut that out.  I don't want to be dependent on others and then freak out if they aren't able to help me.  So even though Selah wasn't sick I didn't ask for any help and just showed up at the dr with one possibly sick child and one non-sick child.  We didn't have to wait in the waiting room long, which was awesome, and the dr came in our room right away.  She looked in Korban's ears and throat and listened to him.  His throat was a little red, but nothing major.  (I'm beginning to think red is his throat's normal color.)  He had perked up some since we were at the dr's--he really loves her--but we decided to do some tests just to make sure.  It's hard to know with Korban, because he doesn't really tell us how he feels, and also with the immune stuff you can't be too careful.  So she decided to do a strep test, flu and RSV, and to check his blood count.  He is very strong, and usually fights any procedure like that, painful or not.  We did strep first, and he fought some, but no big deal.  Flu and RSV were next, and they are both nasal swabs.  The nurse got them really fast, but then his nose started bleeding.  He is very easy to get nosebleeds, and the combination of crying and the swab put him over the top.  So his nose was dripping blood and the nurse ran to grab me a towel.  I was wiping his face and he was crying and crying.  The blood freaks him out.  The more he screamed, the more his nose bled, and the more his nose bled, the more he screamed.  Do you see what a vicious cycle this was?  So I was trying to calm him down and wipe blood and not being terribly successful at either one.  In the meantime, Selah had climbed up on the dr's stool and stood up to get a better view of the whole spectacle.  Thankfully, the dr's husband came along, saw my predicament and held and played with Selah while I tried to calm Korban down. (He actually helped throughout the rest of the ordeal and this was the ONLY thing that kept Selah from climbing up on something to see if she could fall off of it or sticking her finger in an electrical outlet.)  Just when I thought the blood might be slowing down a little, Korban peed everywhere.  So then we had enough blood to look like a crime scene AND a giant pee puddle.  *sigh*  The receptionist walked out to my car for me and got Korban a change of clothes.  While she was doing that, his nosebleed stopped and we were able to do the fingerstick real fast.  He did okay with that, except he screamed for his daddy the whole time.  Or that might've been me screaming for Brad, my memory is fuzzy.  They also moved us next door to a clean room and the nurse was very gracious and cleaned up our first room.  (Which totally looked like it needed a combination team from CSI and HazMat.)  Thankfully, Korban was negative for flu, RSV, and strep and his white blood count was perfect.  Didn't even look viral.  She said he could possibly have a stomach virus, just to keep an eye on him.  But he hasn't thrown up anymore, or had any other symptoms, so I'm wondering if he was just nervous/excited because they had their Valentine party at school today?  I wouldn't really think so, but he threw up during children's church a couple of weeks ago, the first time he went without one of us...So I'm wondering if nervous puking is a new phenomenon he is adding to his roster of Very Weird Things To Do To Freak Parents Out.  Hmmm...We see the child development pediatrician next week so I guess I need to get her opinion on it.  Since there doesn't seem to be any underlying physical cause at this point.  I guess time will tell.  But I'm praying this passes quickly.  Because I think we've all seen about all the bodily fluids we care to see for one day.  After the appointment was over with, the dr even helped me out to the car.  Because at this point I had two kids, my purse, Selah's diaper bag, Korban's backpack (which came in full of clean clothes andleft full of pee clothes) and a stuffed monkey.  And I'm not even sure how all that happened.  Oh, and Korban had thrown up on the sweatshirt he was wearing, so he had no coat, wouldn't wear my coat, and refused to let us wrap him in a blanket. And I was covered in dried blood and also pee from where I had held him before I changed his clothes.  This brings to mind a story my family always teased me about.  Apparently when I was really little, I peed all over my dad while he was holding me at a dr's visit.  If Daddy were here now, we would've had a big laugh about how I got my payback and then some!

 After we left there, I went to happy hour and bought myself a stiff drink and some juice for the kiddos.  Just so you know, Happy Hour was at Sonic and a "stiff drink" in my book constitutes a Rt. 44 Coke.  What did you think I meant?  ;)


Did I mention we go to church with his dr and pretty much all of her staff and that they are saints all the time and not just when I'm drowning like I was today?  They are awesome.  Korban's insurance changed a year ago and we lost the dr he had seen since he was a baby because that office wasn't able to take his new insurance.  I was very upset about that because we all love her so much, but God has helped us through the transition, and this story is a testament to that fact!

But we are basically a walking disaster and I think I need an entourage to accompany me everywhere I go.  Any volunteers?  Squeamish and/or the faint of heart need not apply.  Or maybe I just need a pit crew.  They might be more efficient and faster at cleanup...Happy Valentine's Day ya'll!  (And don't worry--this didn't ruin our Valentine's Day.  We didn't have any plans, and we are hoping to watch a movie and chill out after the kids are snug in their beds.  We do have fun family plans for next weekend, so please pray that all puking/screaming/bleeding etc. disappears from the Essary household by then!

And this is why I'm mostly always late for everything...

Last week Korban had a bacterial infection and pinkeye, so I kept him home from school today just to make sure all was well before sending him back.  He seemed much better, so I thought it might be okay for us to get out and run a couple of errands.  Getting ready to go anywhere with my crew is always a challenge, but I was feeling energetic and the stuff needed to be done, so we started getting ready.  First of all, I decided to put in Korban's eye drops.  That is normally a two-person job and if there were any other adults around that were strong enough and brave enough we would accept their help too.  I had Brad to help me over the weekend, but he was at work, so I was on my own.  I sort of knew what I was up against, because I tried it once without Brad's help over the weekend.  It did not go well.  Even when both of us are working together, we literally have to pretty much sit on Korban and Brad holds his eye open while I squirt the drop in.  Korban vacillates between screaming and laughing during this time.  I think he really does think we are funny, but man is he strong.  So the one time I tried it without Brad, Korban bucked me right off like an angry bull.  I'm pretty strong too, though.  I may have even held on for eight seconds.  Maybe I should try for a career in bull-riding.  I knew that same approach wouldn't work today, so I tried a modified leg-lock.  That worked pretty well.  If things don't pan out for me on the PBR circuit, maybe I could go with the WWE.  Hmmm...

After that drama, I decided to hop in the shower.  Selah tagged along to the bathroom with me.  Our bathroom has a stand-alone shower and a tub in the corner.  As I was getting in the shower, she was climbing into the bathtub.  I told her not to get in the bathtub and get her clothes wet (she's learning how to turn on the water.)  She was already dressed for the day, and I told her that if she got her clothes wet she would be In Trouble.  Because of previous experiences with my children, I have perfected the art of Rapid Showering.  Imagine my surprise when I hopped out of the shower a few minutes later to find her sitting in the tub with the water trickling, naked.  NAKED!  But, hey, her clothes didn't get wet, so she couldn't get in trouble, right?  She found the loophole.  Maybe she will be an attorney one day.  So I hurried and got dressed and then re-dressed Selah.  Korban was still in his pajamas, so I got ready to put his clothes on.  He didn't want to get dressed, so he started fighting me.  (Yes, I mean that literally.  When he doesn't want to do something like that, he slaps our hands away, scratches, pinches, etc.)  While I was wrestling his clothes on, I somehow managed to crack my pinky finger on the edge of the bathroom counter.  Had to waste more time jumping up and down and howling about that, but it's okay now.  I finished dressing Korban and turned back to Selah.  She had climbed up onto the handwashing stool, gotten the toothpaste, and smeared it across her cheeks like warpaint.  That took some scrubbing to get rid of, but at least she smelled minty fresh afterwards!  

After gathering up sippy cups and assorted paraphernalia, it was finally time to head out the door.  I opened the door to the van and noticed there was no car seat for Selah.  My mom had baby-sat her last Thursday while we took Korban to the dr, and we never got the seat back.  Selah hadn't been anywhere since then, and I had not even realized we didn't have it.  Fortunately, my mom lives close by.  I strapped Selah into Korban's booster, which has a five point harness, and tightened the straps to fit her.  Put his extra booster seat (which does NOT have a five point harness, meaning I don't like to use it) into the empty spot and belted Korban into it.  We drove down the road to my mom's house where we then played musical car seats.  I took Korban out, took out the spare booster, installed Selah's car seat, moved her from Korban's good car seat into her seat, and then strapped Korban into his seat after readjusting the straps to fit him again.  Whew!  And then we were off.  And I was exhausted.  So if you have ever wondered why we have trouble being on time for stuff, well, here's why!

Selah-Speak

Selah talks--a lot.  At least, it seems like a whole lot to us, probably because Korban didn't really talk at all until he was three, and he still struggles with communication.  So it seems amazing and miraculous to us to have a little one who talks so much.  She is pretty easy to understand, but she has a habit of just saying the first syllable of a world twice instead of the whole word.  It's pretty cute.  Here's a list of some  of the things she says:

Tor-tor=Korban
Pig-Pig=Piglet
Bank-bank=Blanket
Chick chick nug nug=Chicken nuggets
Fish fish=Fish sticks
Bean beans=Green beans
Pop Pop=Pop-Tart
Ronicheese=Macaroni and cheese
Dine-in-a-soar=Dinosaur
Kang-in-a-roo=Kangaroo
Ah-nen-oh-me-me-me= Anemone (Seriously--it's in one of her Baby Einstein books.  Has six syllables when she says it.  Hilarious!)
Cha-Cha=Her dear friend Charlie

Lately she has gotten in the habit of telling Korban "Stop dat!  Hear me?"  Oh my.  I don't even realize I say something so much until I hear it from the kids.  She also tells Korban to "go play" when he is aggravating her.  He says "Alright kiddos," at random intervals and it's funny to me.  Guess he hears that one a lot.  I call him "little man" sometimes. He has picked up on this and the other day he told my mom "Sit down, little man."  Boy was she surprised!

Also, Selah likes to compliment people.  It's sweet.  Her favorite thing to "like" is someone's shirt.  No matter what I'm wearing, she says "I yike dat shirt, Mama."  The other day we were outside, and she was playing with our dog Pat.  She told him "I yike dat tail, Pat-Pat."  I would've never thought to give the dog a compliment on his tail, but she is right.  He does have a very nice tail.  It's fuzzy and curls over his back right nicely.  And he doesn't wear shirts, so she needed to find something to compliment him on.

Tonight when we had our "dee-ocean" as she calls our devotion, she said prayers.  She wants to be like Korban.  She repeated whatever he said, and it was so sweet.  We helped her out with some things to say.  For example, we said "Bless Korban," and she said "Bless Tor-Tor."  (He pretty much thinks that's his name now.  When they are playing and it is his turn with a toy, he tells me "It's Tor-Tor's turn."  Maybe he just wants to make sure she understands.  Because heaven forbid there be any miscommunication with the turn-taking business.)  But back to Selah's prayers.  She said "Bless Mama," without us prompting her and I thought my heart would burst.  She also said "Bless baby, bless hairbow, bless duck park."  So that was her first "on her own" prayers and I don't ever want to forget it.  I also need to take her to the "duck park" really soon.  Tor-Tor too.

Speaking of being proud, Korban said out of the clear blue "I like the Rebels.  Ha-wee Ta-wee!" (Hotty Toddy!)  He is his father's son!  And tonight during prayers, the very last thing he said was "Bless sitting at the table eating Push-Ups."  Ha!  He is very fond of Popsicles.

Korban had a little stomach bug on Saturday.  By that night he didn't really have any symptoms except for a low-grade temp and he was kind of dragging around.  I was asking him questions like "Does your stomach still hurt?  Does your head hurt? Does your throat hurt?"  Finally he said to me very patiently "No more belly still hurt.  No more head hurt.  No more throat hurt.  I just sick."  That cleared it up.  I think that might be the longest thing he's ever said.  He was probably tired of me asking questions!  And today when we left school, he told his teachers good-bye.  When we got to the door, he turned back around and said "Bye friends."  So much cuteness.

Well, the kids have been asleep for a while now and for some reason I am still awake.  Considering that,  what with the sickness and all Saturday, I didn't even lay down until 5:30 Sunday morning, there is really no good reason for my eyes to still be open right now.  Good night all!

Organizational Skills

If you know me at all, you know that I am not an organized person.  But I want to be.  Somewhere inside me, there is an organized woman.  She just can't find her way out through all my clutter.  My household needs structure, organization, and my life in general needs less clutter.  It would be easier on all of us.  And I would like that.  So I have had a real brainstorm about meal planning and I thought I would share it.  I love to cook.  Really, I do.  But I hate it when I am scrambling at the last minute trying to throw something together and I am lacking an ingredient or I forgot to defrost the meat.  Also, we are trying to pinch pennies any way we can.  Our church recently had a couponing class and it was awesome.  So I have been collecting coupons and trying to wrap my head around all of that business.  I have an iPhone.  Those are powerful tools in the hands of organized people.  Mine mainly just confuses me.  But I am learning!  I like that little calendar feature.  I mainly use it to keep up with appointments, but my bright idea consisted of using it to streamline my meal planning.  Brad just got paid, which means I get to go grocery shopping.  (Yay!)  I planned out meals for the next two weeks and plugged the meals into my handy-dandy calendar as events.  So if I opened my calendar for September 2nd, it would say "Jambalaya."  Every event you enter has a spot for location, and in that box I put the name of the cookbook that the particular recipe is in.  I even set alerts to go off a couple of days in advance for all of the recipes that require defrosting meat so that I will remember to lay the meat in the refrigerator in time.  Additionally, I used the little note feature in my phone to make my grocery list.  I am forever making really great grocery lists and then leaving them at home, so this is pretty awesome for me.  I always have my phone with me; therefore, I always have my list.  I have my coupons ready to go, and I am ready to tackle the groceries stores tomorrow morning.  I'm hoping this works out well and is a system I can keep up with.  I know it sounds crazy, but I was pretty excited about it.  Anything to help us along.  Actually I was really excited about it.  I called my mom and said "Pick any date between now and September the 16th, and I'll tell you what we're having for supper that night."  "September 7th," she replied.  "Meatloaf!" I proclaimed.  She said "Wow!" like I had just done a really cool magic trick or something.  She was probably humoring me, but it made me feel good.  Also, she is going to help me shop tomorrow, which I really appreciate.  I bribed her with coupons for chocolate and Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  :)

In case anyone is wondering how family devotions are going, we read about Moses' staff turning into a snake tonight.  Both kids got excited and said "Nake, nake."  Hope they don't go looking for one.  Also, they had a short-lived but very lively brawl in the middle of the story and after that, Selah inserted a finger up each one of my nostrils.  But we made it through and afterwards they sat and looked at the Veggie Tales book together, so I think maybe they are getting into it.  Also, when we prayed Korban said "Bless coupons."  He knows about the coupons because he saw my stack of them and tried to scatter them, and I explained to him that I needed them for grocery shopping.  He does like the groceries, so maybe that is why he thought the coupons needed blessing.  Hope it helps me out tomorrow!

Family Devotions Gone Awry: The Story of Moses in the Basket in the Desert

I have a really great story about our family devotional time, but I need to give some background information first.  Back in July, Selah had an ear infection.  She wasn't running fever, but she actually told me "ear hurt" and her tubes were draining.  We went to the dr right away and got medicine, and went on about our business.  After being on antibiotics for a couple of days, she woke up very early one morning with a really high fever.  I took her to the ER, and the dr decided to do a chest xray.  It came back showing a small spot of pneumonia.  He prescribed another antibiotic to go along with the one we were already on, and told me to follow up with our regular pediatrician.  Her fever went down as the day progressed, and she seemed to feel better.  We gave her the medicine, and went to her pediatrician several days later for a re-check.  She ordered another x-ray and it came back showing the same spot.  We thought that it just hadn't had enough time to clear up, so we waited a week and then did it again.  The same spot was still showing, so we were referred to a pediatric pulmonologist at LeBonheur.  A couple of weeks after that, we went to our appointment with him.  He repeated the x-ray and the same spot was still there.  So he decided to do a bronchoscope.  They would put Selah under anesthesia and run a small scope into her lung to take a look.  He told us that a small portion of the lung could be collapsed, she could have a foreign body in her lung (said herhad recently found a peanut in the lung of a baby her age!), or it could be mucus, fluid, a tumor, basically any number of things.  So we were slightly worried, but Selah was not slowing down and seemed to feel great so that was encouraging.  Her bronchoscope was done today.  She did beautifully.  We had to wait for a long time and she couldn't have anything to eat or drink but she was so good.  Bless LeBonheur for having a playroom!  We played for several hours while awaiting her turn.  She had a good time.  I could tell she was hungry--she had a go at the plastic food in the toy kitchen, but that didn't work out so well for her.  Quite honestly, the longer we sat there, the more delicious that fake food started to look, so I totally understood.  She got so tired, she fell asleep in my arms.  (It was way past her normal naptime.)  So when they came to get her for her procedure, they let us walk her all the way to the OR.  The dr was already in the room and they let us come on in.  Brad laid Selah on the bed, being as how I was too short to reach it.  She stayed asleep and we were able to kiss her and then leave to let them do their work.  Most peaceful separation I have ever had with either of my children for their medical stuff! (One prior surgery for Selah, four surgeries for Korban plus two procedures he had to be sedated for.  Ugh.  Doesn't get easier with practice.) So we went to the waiting room.  Brad went to get us a drink.  We didn't want to eat or drink in front of her of course, so we hadn't had anything all day.  I had a pack of Jelly Bellies in my purse and I had literally shoved about half of those in my mouth when a nurse walked up to me and said "Alright, mom, come with me to the consultation room and the dr will be in shortly."  I thought he was going to have to scope me next because I almost aspirated my jellybeans!  Those waits are always so long, but I had practically just sat down.  So I was frantically texting Brad so he could come back.  He got there right before the doctor.  The dr said that he drew some mucous/fluid out of her lung and flushed it with saline to clear it out.  They will send it off to culture it for everything under the sun.  It will take 8 weeks to hear from that, but he felt sure that it wouldn't show anything alarming.  There were no foreign bodies, praise the Lord.  I was half-convinced she had one of the wheels of her brother's toy car in there or something.  I swear, when Korban was a baby, we didn't have anything that wasn't approved for the three and under crowd.  That's not so easy with your second child!  Her lung was not collapsed, there was no bleeding, and everything looked good.  We are SO thankful.  We got to go back to recovery as soon as she woke up.  She barely cried at all.  They had an ICEE machine (how cool is that?)  Selah perked up right away with the ICEE, ate all of that, and they let us come home.  She is coughing some, which they said was to be expected, but seems to feel well.  Thank You Jesus!  We are so grateful to all of our friends who were messaging us today to tell us they were praying.  Every time my phone beeped it was a reminder that someone cares enough about my family to lift us up to God, and that is an awesome feeling.

Now for the family devotion story.  We have recently started reading a Veggie Tales devotional book with our kids at night.  They both love Veggie Tales, and we thought it would be a good way to kick off family devotions.  Let me tell you, we weren't sure how much the kids were getting out of it, being as how they spent most of the time jumping up and down on the bed and/or trying to climb on Brad's head as he read to them.  But we plugged on.  Last night the devotion was talking about Moses and how his mother hid him in a basket in the river and trusted God with his safety.  Korban kept saying "in the desert."  Not sure how a river could be in the middle of the desert, but okaaaay.  Brad finished reading the story and then said we would pray.  He asked Korban to say a prayer for Selah and her doctors.  He told Korban that Selah had to go to the hospital so the dr could look at her lung and help her get well.  Korban asked if she would get a shot, and we told him yes, but that she would be asleep and wouldn't feel it. (They didn't put the IV in until she was asleep, so she really didn't feel it.)  Brad asked Korban if he remembered when our church prayed for Selah and anointed her with oil.  He told him that the dr might find that there's not even anything wrong, and that we were sure she was going to be just fine.  Then, knowing how I worry and thinking of the Bible story he had just read, he turned to me and said "We're just going to put Selah in a basket and trust God to take care of her."  I had about half a second to think about what a good analogy that was before Korban burst into tears.  Loud sobbing.  Tears squirting out of his eyes.  It took us by surprise so much that we just pretty much gawked at each other and him for a couple of seconds before we even moved to comfort him.  We had no idea what was wrong, if he was hurting, etc.  I was trying to hug him and ask him what was wrong.  "NO MORE PUT SELAH IN THE BASKET!" he bawled.  "NO MORE LEAVE SELAH IN THE DESERT!"  Yeah, that whole thing about autistic kids taking most everything literally, that's pretty much true.  Oops.  We were so relieved to find out what was wrong that we started to laugh.  We loved on him and assured him that we weren't actually putting Selah in a basket and we for sure weren't gonna leave her in the desert.  Selah seemed totally unconcerned about any impending threat from baskets, deserts, rivers, etc.  She just kept on jumping on the bed while we cuddled Korban and tried to make everything okay.  "It's okay," Brad told him.  "I was just using a metaphor.  Can you say metaphor?" he asked him.  " "METAPHOR!" Selah crowed as she bounced past.  Which made us laugh because, hello, she's 20 months and she can say metaphor.  Very cool.  The laughing spurred her on and she chirped "Metaphor, metaphor."  Yes, metaphors can be dangerous, as we found out.  But we convinced Korban that we weren't taking Selah anywhere to leave her and that she would be just fine.  And we said prayers and went to bed.  But hey, at least now we know that he plans on keeping her, right?

In The Middle

Sometimes I think I would've been better suited for a middle child instead of an only child.  I say that because I kind of always feel like I'm in the middle.  Whatever group I happen to find myself in, I'm usually not at the top or the bottom, just somewhere in the middle.  I'm a pretty good peacemaker.  And I'm a terrible people-pleaser.  I say that because, while I want everyone to be happy with me all the time, I'm not always good at making that happen.  I try to juggle too many balls and invariably end up dropping some, if not all, of them.  (Yes, I do know you can't please everybody all of the time but that bit of wisdom doesn't stop me from trying and then feeling like a failure.  I don't know why.  I'm just mental that way.)  Sometimes I think I'm getting better about with this particular character flaw, and then it sucks me back in.  I feel pulled in too many directions, like a Stretch Armstrong doll about to snap.  It's like the very people that I want to make the happiest are the ones I let down the most.  The weird part is, I don't even think they feel as disappointed with me as much as I do with myself.  There are too many conflicts and I can't do this without letting one person down but if I go ahead and do it, I've let someone else down.  And I feel hugely responsible for other people, even though I maybe shouldn't.  I don't know how far personal responsibility goes; when I'm helping and when I'm making things worse.

Like my mom for example.  I love my mom.  We've always been close.  But sometimes you wouldn't know which one of us is the parent and which one of us in the child.  She's naive in many ways; childlike.  Sometimes I find it amusing and sometimes I find it annoying.  She's not extremely independent and I really wasn't raised to be either, although I think I have enough spunk in me to work around a lot of that.  My parents were extremely protective of me growing up.  I mean to the EXTREME!!!  People asked me what I had done to make my parents not trust me, and I would laugh and say nothing.  It was true.  They mostly trusted me, I think it was the rest of the world they were worried about.  And they had good reason to trust me.  I was sort of always a mini-adult.  I'm one of those people who follows the rules.  I return shopping carts to the designated place, I have a healthy respect for authority, and I don't even tear the tags off of pillows.  I wasn't allowed to make a lot of decisions for myself growing up, and I think I'm sort of making up for that now.  (They are just lucky I didn't go the other way and that's all I'm going to say about that.)

But it's weird now because I'm not even 30 yet, and I feel like I'm the one taking care of my mom.  I know that isn't necessarily true, she does a lot for me and my family.  But ever since my dad died I feel like I have to be strong for her.  That if I don't hold it together, everything will fall apart.  In a lot of ways, I feel like people viewed it as my mom losing her husband but not me losing my dad.  Again, this is only my perception of things, and I am smart enough to know that just because I perceive something a certain way doesn't make it reality.  I'm used to being an anxious sort of person, but when my dad died I had a two week old infant and an autistic three year old at home.  It was like I had so much to worry about that I couldn't possibly cover all of it, so my mind just sort of shut down.  All I could focus on was getting through whatever needed to be done and keep on moving.  My dad was like that, and I don't think he would've wanted me to just wallow in my grief.  And even if I had wanted to, I just don't see how that would've been possible.  But just because I was able to keep moving, do whatever I needed to do to get through the day, and do all of that for the most part without having a breakdown didn't mean I wasn't grieving.  The very implication of that made me mad.  The anxiety I was used to, the anger not so much.  The odd part is, it's not directed at anybody.  I'm not mad at my dad for dying, I'm not angry at God, I'm not mad at any of my family.  I just have this low level of irritability simmering below the surface that I never noticed so much before.  Brad (Mr. Mental Health) reminded me that anger is in fact one of the stages of grief.  He's right--I paid attention in those social work classes too.  I just didn't picture myself being the one getting stuck in that particular stage.  Maybe this is what I get for skipping right over the denial stage.  Who knows?  It just doesn't jive with my personality, and I'd be thankful to work through it and move on.

I feel like I've lost a lot more family that many people my age.  Not sure what the "average" is, but any kind of loss hurts.  All four of my grandparents are gone, and now my dad.  And my dad was a good bit older than my mom, and we had already lost all of daddy's siblings before him.  I have a couple of cousins left on my dad's side of the family, but I never see them.  Honestly, some of my distant relatives on his side of the family, I wouldn't recognize if I passed them on the street.  Nor would they me.  And that makes me sad.  My mom has an awesome family, very loving and supportive, but sometimes I feel like she gets upset if I try to spend too much time with them.  Like they are hers and not mine.  Which I definitely could be wrong, I have been known to read a little bit too much into situations.  But I have this horror of having no people left.  I worry about Brad.  I worry about my kids.  I don't want to be as overprotective of my kids as my parents were of me, but I still worry obsessively.  I want my kids to be able to learn and make mistakes and DO things without the constant fear of "what if?"  But my situation is different than my parents'.  I have a child who may or may not be able to make decisions for himself, may or may not be able to live independently when he is grown.  Of course, we pray and hope for the best but there's still that part of me that has to have a contingency plan.  What terrifies me the most is, you just get one chance.  How would you feel if you knew there was a very slim chance your child would actually listen to you?  If your child got away from you in public and was running towards a busy street and you were screaming bloody murder, would your child stop?  Mine wouldn't.  Therefore I hold on him so hard it probably hurts sometimes.  But that's better than the alternative.  The thing that takes my breath away is the worry that I'll miss something.  That one of them will be sick and I won't know it.  That I will be distracted for just a minute in a public place and Korban wanders into the path of a vehicle, or wanders off and gets lost, or gets taken.  I know I shouldn't obsess about it, but I don't know how to stop.  How would you feel if your child couldn't effectively communicate, couldn't ask for help in a crowd, couldn't stop when his mother told him too?  I know many kids are impulsive, I'm not saying it's just us.

Last night I dreamed that we were walking across a high bridge above some water.  One of my teenage cousins was carrying Selah and walking across the bridge ahead of us.  I was behind holding Korban's hand and walking across.  All of a sudden, my cousin just sat Selah on the bridge and walked away.  There were guard rails on the side, but she's so tiny I knew she could slip through them and into the water below.  I was screaming for her to come back and get Selah and frantically trying to decide whether to leave Korban and run to Selah or not.  I woke up after that.  Pulled in too many directions.  So afraid I'm going to let somebody down.  That I will neglect one child while caring for the other.  Of not having anybody left...

We are okay though.  I'm just stressing tonight, and thought it would be better to vent some of this rather than leaving it in.  So don't worry about us, but do pray!