'X' Marks The Spot- The Adventures of Emily

I think I am getting a baptism by fire of what it is like to raise 3 kids! HELP. . . First Good news, Matthew is off his light blanket. No more daily blood draws for our little man and now at night I can let him sleep more than 2 hours! Here are some pictures of Matthew on the light blanket.



MONDAY
Here is our story this week with sweet little Emily as the star! She is a delight but we are finding out quickly she has a more intense yet tender personality than her big sister Ellie. On Monday I was doing laundry and she came up to me and said, "mama" to get my attention. Then she preceded to put herself in the corner on time out. She turned around and laughed at me! I thought she was just being funny. What I would soon find out is she was paying her consequence for taking a permanent marker and marking Matthew's head with an "X" along with scribbling all over his arm and head. Luckily he slept through the whole artistic experience. Here is where my lack of judgement came in. I was laughing so hard on the inside that I wanted to capture this moment so I ran to get my camera and didn't take the marker from Emily. When I returned she had moved on to our bed, creating her permanent marker art on our brand new high thread count bed sheets and all over herself!



(click on the picture to see the 'X' closer up)

TUESDAY
Tuesday I continued to scrub Matthew and Emily several times trying to get the permanent marker off their skin without hurting them. Emily's markings would not come off or even fade. She was proud and did not want to cover her art work with a shirt. So I put her down for a rest/nap with a rainbow hat on, jeans, and no shirt. What happened over the next hour included the scariest, most intense, frantic moments of my life. I put Ellie and Emily in my bed with the movie Sleeping Beauty. I put Matthew in his room and I was in the girl's room unpacking. I thought all was well until I heard a muffled cry. I ran to check on Matthew- he was asleep. So I ran to see if it was Emily. I found Ellie but no Emily. I kept hearing this muffled cry and became more frantic as I ran through the house checking every cupboard, bathroom, bedroom, closet, etc... but couldn't locate Emily or where this muffled cry was coming from.

I called Brandon. He raced home. I checked every door. All but one was locked. We had a worker in the garage and the door to the garage was open and the crawl space under the house was open too. My heart sunk. I thought she was hurt under the house hurt (this would explain the muffled cry) or wandered off our property to the horse pasture behind us which has an irrigation ditch and small pond (I was not thinking rationally and figured if she was not in the house the cry I had heard was just my imagination.) Well, to make a long, scary story short Grandma Dorothy, the Sheriff's Department, and 2 EMT's showed up and we all were searching for her. They were asking me questions and all I remember is I was highly emotional and completely scared- a little out of control. I wasn't making sense, because they would ask me something and then they didn't understand my answers.

Well, finally after what seemed like an eternity, the EMT found Emily. Guess where she was- Brandon's closet hiding behind all his pants. He only saw 2 little toes sticking out and the rainbow hat she was wearing earlier. She was scared and would not come out for him. My mom was by him and she came to my mom. I have NEVER been so scared and then so happy in my whole life.

This experience is all we could think of and talk about for the rest of Tuesday. After thinking it through I think Emily was scared when she heard the intensity in my voice- I was crying and screaming her name and I think she was completely confused. Tuesday night as we were putting Emily to sleep, Brandon said the permanent markings Emily put on our brand new sheets didn't matter- just having Emily safe with us was all that mattered. It is all about perspective and this experience put everything into perspective.