I Need an Asprin

Ahhh! I have so much to share about the past three to four days... It all started with the fulfillment of one of my worst nightmares.

Friday morning found LaLa and I at a bit of an impasse... her desire to wear panties and be a big girl balanced with her less than stellar skills at keeping them dry. My favorite part is when we go to the toilet and she cannot squeak out a drop, then eight minutes later she lets loose while standing on top of her play kitchen set. I remind myself here that this IS the beginning of the end for her and her reliance on doobahs.

We have about six pair that fit her, and she has approximately two to three oopsies a day. The math is not good and neither are my laundry skilz. Piffle. That morning she'd had an oopsie, and nothing clean upstairs to change into. LaLa flat refused the offer of a doobah so I headed downstairs to the dryer to grab the baggy pink diaper cover that I would try to foist off on the girl as a pair of panties. The basement is in the process of being wired up by Dadguy... think bare wooden stairs, concrete, power tools, exposed beams. LaLa opens the door and insist that she come down too. I insist that she close the door... I hear the door close. Do I hear it catch?

So there I am standing in front of the dryer insisting that the pair of "My Little Pony" panties that she fished off the top of a dirty pile of laundry is not good to wear. I think this because, typical mom that I am... I am sort of squeamish about my kid running around in panties stiff with dried up pee. LaLa was totally not buying that the baggy pink linen diaper cover in my hand was really underwear, and well, it isn't. I hear the creak of the basement door, and though I left the baby in the front room with a bottle and Birdie was up there as well... every hair on my body reached for the sky because I KNEW. It still is like a fist in the gut, remembering the sound of my Pearl's little nine month old body WHUMPing down those steps... ALL the horrifying way, down those steps.

I am running... I am fairly sure that I shrieked a swear. I am holding a howling Pearl in my arms and I fear that she is broken. Broken. I rush to the top of the stairs with her then to my bed, her limp body clutched to my chest, fearing all the while that I am damaging her further by clutching her so tight... unable to loosen my hold. Laid out on my bed she mostly looks and sound angry, I am looking for blood. Birdie and LaLa are baying and yipping like hound dogs trying to jump up on the bed trying to touch the baby. By this time I am truly freaked, I call my girlfriend from two houses down.

"Karen, I need you RIGHT NOW!" I say.

It must have been in my voice because thirty seconds later she is there with her daughter, she has called off the dogs and she helps me undress my baby. All that we find...
-a funny fork shaped mark in between her eyes.
-a bruise next to her right eye.
-a very pissed off baby.
After a long talk with the doctor's office I am pretty sure that all. That's it. No permanent damage. I begin to breathe again


Witness, the picture taken three hours after the fall, the marks already are fading. I have combed that stairway trying to figure out what gave hr the fork shaped mark. A mystery. Today you can only see the marks if you know where to look.

The next morning after getting the dishes washed LaLa and I head out for the local Shopco to buy more panties, leaving a napping Pearl and Birdie-the-Daddy's-girl with Dadguy. LaLa picks out a 3 pack of Tinkerbell panties and I grab a less pricey pack of 6. Then I am glancing through the girls zip up hoodies, looking for something for my fast growing Bird for fall, 'cause you know... 30% off. I look up and in the six seconds since I last looked up my two year old has made like Casper. AUUGHK! Three heart stopping minutes later, and five moms looking and shouting, she doodle bugs back and finds herself stuffed in the shopping cart before she could even tell me how "thcauwd" she was. Holy Crap! I HOPE she was scared! It's then that I take a good look at her. I am letting both my girls grow their hair long, but had not put her up yet that morning so she had the shaggy, in the eyes waif thing going. Set this off with the fact that she had insisted on dressing herself that morning. While the outfit wasn't that bad overall... it included her older sister's pink tights that she had scavenged from the trash, the ones with the entire left knee ripped out and they were sagging and flopping about on her. I hadn't showed or bothered with make-up, my shirt was dirty. Holy trailer trash, Batman. Sighing I head us over to the bathmats to replace the one from the girl's bathroom that I literally washed to pieces, 'cause... well 40% off.

It was then that my daughter who I had sat in the cart in the proper... sitting place, sitting properly to keep her FREAKING SAFE! Starts to scream with her index finger somehow caught under the plastic thingy that covers the handle of the cart. It is just loose enough to fit a two-year-old finger. Smash it and slice it and BLOOD.. screaming, and me holding her splurting finger as I run for the front counter. Paper work, waiting, hospital, waiting, x-rays, waiting and ten thousand rounds of "This Little Piggy." In the end? We are given the equivalent of a big band aid and sent home.

I feel compelled to share with you a few of the thoughts that were going through my head while driving LaLa to the hospital. What am I doing wrong? What kind of crappy mom am I? They must all think that I am some loser-mom showing up with unbrushed teeth, scraggly kid and just OOOOH! The SHAME! It's all my fault, I'm doing something wrong, why me? Me? Me? Deep breath. I cannot do this. This is beyond my strength.

I hear in my head a gentle voice..."let go, and let God." I pray, and suddenly it is no longer about me. It is about my funny little LaLa strapped into her seat in the back of the van. That little girl whose dandelion puff hair is now sticking together in chunks and stuck in gooey strands to her cheeks from the careless brandishing of a sucker the Shopco employees gave her for being brave. Everything gets do-able and I'm her Mama, but I'm not "in charge," I am just along for the ride.

Mind you... it's gonna be a SHORT ride if those kids keep writing on my favorite chair with ball point freaking PENS!