Out of the Frying Pan, In Front of the Fire

 

I woke up this morning, all shaky and headachey from crying so hard last night, once Eric got home, and I told him the whole thing, completing dissolving into the trauma of it all.  "You saved her," he said to me, holding me, and that made me feel a thousand times better and also sent me into a gale of tears again.  So half the day was my own little version of post-traumatic stress disorder, recovering from such a near-miss.

Luckily, things improved a whole lot from there.  We decided just to have a family day, and kicked it around the house.  We mowed and weed-whacked and bought a fire pit for the backyard.  We put on crazy dance music and made play-dough and went grocery shopping.  For the first time in months, I could feel the stress and tension of the move and the semester and every other little thing begin to ooze out of my body.  I laid on the patio, the girls crawling all over me, and just watched the leaves dancing in the breeze.

We got both girls to sleep tonight, lit the fire, and just hung out together, chatting and zoning out into the embers.  What a perfect day, really.  I am overcome with gratitude, again and again, that this was our today.

Thanks to everyone who called or emailed, and to all my chicas at http://www.hipmama.com for the comments and support.  You all are the best.  Addie goes into the doc tomorrow for allergy testing, and we'll see if they want to do an x-ray then, just in case she's got a whole change purse rattling around in there.  Keep you posted.