There's Always Moes

This has been a very strange week and it came to a culmination tonight. I can only hope it is all down hill from here. It all started almost two weeks ago now with Emily's ear infection. I said in an earlier post this week that she had returned to her normal self but I spoke a little too soon. She kept getting these strange rashes which would reappear and disappear and I kept having this internal battle with myself (and an external one with Freddie) as to whether or not I thought it was a reaction to the antibiotics or if it was just a viral rash.. take her in (and spend another $25) or wait it out.. take her in... wait it out. Oh the turmoil. I finally ended up making her an appointment but it was going to be at 8:45am on the same morning I had an appointment with my OB/GYN. The thought of getting all 4 of us ready to make it out the door by 8:15am and then coming home to leave again was just too much. So, I canceled the appointment. Bad Mom? Maybe. But she is ok now... and even seems to truly be back to her jovial easy going self. Well, except for the night awakenings... need to come up with a plan there. You would think that with her being child #3 I would have no qualms about shutting the door, turning down the monitor and calling it a good night's sleep... but, alas, I can't bring myself to do it. What if her ear is still bothering her? What if she is cold? What if she really is hungry? I mean, she hasn't been eating as much recently. What if she is just scared? There really is no more difficult job than motherhood. Where is the instruction manual with the decision tree?

So, why the OB/GYN appointment, you ask? I found a lump in my breast. Just typing that out or saying that makes my skin crawl and a wave of nausea wash over me. Thankfully, I have been very blessed my entire life with good health. I have had the flu a couple times and mastitis twice but that is about the extent of my poor health. I have had incredibly easy and complication free pregnancies and deliveries. I am only 29 (I am hanging on as long as I can to my 20s). Thus far, I have lived with this sort of invincible feeling. That is, up until this past week when my mortality became very real to me. Cancer can't happen to me. I am going to live to see my children grow up and get married and have children of their own. Freddie and I are going to live in the beach house and grow old together. Death is not right around the corner for me. And, thank God, it appears that it really isn't. My OB believes it is just fibrous tissue but I am going to have an ultrasound next Friday just to make sure.

Part of our schooling this week was to read a book The Storm in the Night which touched on the subject of fear. We did family devotions in the evening and discussed fear and how the Lord says do not be afraid. He is with us always. He did not give us a spirit of timidity. The Lord is in control. He shall never leave us nor forsake us. I know all of these truths. Yet, when faced with just the potential of having a life threatening disease, fear got the best of me. I am not afraid of dying. I look forward to the day I get to meet Jesus and live in perfect peace with Him. I do, however, want to see my children grow up and I want to grow old with Freddie. This experience made me realize that all of these images of our future.. these hopes and dreams and ideas... are just that. They may never come to fruition. We aren't promised tomorrow. We only really have today. Am I living every day like it is my last? Am I enjoying God and all of the blessings he has given me today? Or am I worrying about tomorrow? The latter often weaves its way in and out of my day. God clearly instructs us in the Bible to not worry. It is a very real way of showing lack of faith. I once read - Worry doesn't take away the sorrow of tomorrow but it does take the joy out of today. So true.

On a lighter note... Joshua went to his first "big boy" birthday party tonight. Mom nor Dad went with him. He is actually on his way home now and I can't wait for him to come home and tell me all about the Star Wars movie they watched. He has been so excited all day. Sophia was heartbroken when he left with a group of his friends. She cried and desperately wanted to tag along. So, I decided to have a girl's night complete with dinner out, mani/pedi time and Shrek 2 (her fave). She wanted pizza so we headed out to this little pizzeria down the road. We checked in with the hostess and I asked for a high chair for Emily. They were out of high chairs so I told the server that it was ok we will just go somewhere else. She asked if a booster seat is ok and I politely declined as I couldn't imagine that would go well at all with my 8 month old who has just started to sit up well and likes to crawl everywhere. No problem.. we can just go somewhere else. No no no she says... and she runs off to find an alternate solution. I am confused as to how one could solve this problem considering there were no other unused high chairs in the restaurant but Sophia, Em and I hang out at the table. A few minutes later a big burly man came around the corner in an exasperated tone of voice saying "Ma'am, I am sorry but there are NO OTHER high chairs.. I only have 3. I have never had it happen where all 3 high chairs are used at the same time." I tried to interrupt him to tell him that I told the lady we would go somewhere else... that I didn't ask her to try to find another high chair in a building where there were no other high chairs. But he kept repeating himself and acted perturbed when I told him that we were leaving. Then, he asked me if I had a chair in my car I could bring in to use. Um, no. And sitting in a booth in a busy restaurant with a two year old and an 8 month old unrestrained was also out of the question. I have to admit I had a thorny internal response to this incident. I was not loving that man in that moment. I could not believe that somehow I was the target of blame, in some weird way, for them not having an extra high chair. It was quite surreal, the whole experience. Sophia was almost in tears leaving and wondering if we were still going to get pizza. Sure! We will head over to another pizza place.. we certainly aren't lacking any around here. Into the car seats we went... 3 miles down the road.. out of the car seats again. It was almost 7pm by that point. I approached the hostess station and hear "That will be a 20-25 minute wait. " No way. Emily could erupt with sleepy tears at any moment and Sophia is starving by this point. So, back to the car we went. We headed down Woodruff Road and Sophia said from the back of the van "We can just go and get ice cream.. there are a lot of chairs there!". I literally laughed out loud. I should have just taken her up on that but we headed to Moes. You can always count on Moes as having a plethora of high chairs.

We left Moes around 7:30pm and Emily was still in a great mood and Sophia was so charming so I decided to brave the grocery store. We have nothing in the house for breakfast and we didn't this morning either and my conscious wouldn't let me feed my kids Dunkin' Donuts two days in a row. We get there and I can't, for the life of me, get the belt buckled around Emily's rotund belly. Sophia is desperate to get into the big basket of the buggy and people are crashing shopping carts around me like I am not even there. Anxiety starts to well up inside of me. So, I paused getting the belty clicker thingy to work and I scooped Sophia up and put her in the back of the shopping cart. Totally against shopping cart law, but, oh well. Finally I some how figured out the belt and Emily was secure and we were off. I was just going to pick up a few things to get us through tomorrow, but, we are here and no one is melting down so I find myself going down every aisle tossing things into the buggy. Poor Sophia was quickly becoming buried under Lucky Charms, pork tenderloins and Gerber baby food. As long as she had her "money" (ie coupons from the automatic dispenser) she didn't seem to care that she was drowning in a sea of groceries. I didn't either as long as she didn't squish my bread. We finally checked out with all of my necessities and $140 later we were leaving the store. I followed the bagger who is taking my groceries out to the van and begin buckling Sophia into her car seat and I hear this man who is toting a case of Coors shouting "Something something is so cheap.. you should get some". I thought he was telling me I should go back in and buy a case of beer. Huh? So, I quickly scanned my surroundings and brushed off the creepy guy feeling and raced around to the other side of the van to make sure Emily is buckled and I almost got hit by another van who is going down the wrong lane of the parking lot and trying to park right next to us. "The Cheerios, can't believe they are only $2"(to two other young girls walking out of the store)... "you should get a box or two of those Cheerios! They are never this cheap." What? Who says that to random strangers? So, I finally get everyone situated and I get into the van. I just wanted to go home where it is safe and people are nice and not too strange and buckles clip together easily and people don't yell at me. And, sad to say, mani/pedi time nor Shrek 2 ever occurred. But, all in all, despite the oddness of the evening, I think a successful GNO was had.