Creepy Crawlies

It's official.

After a couple of days of belly flopping with reaching or rocking back and forth on all fours, Miss Q is officially crawling. Yegads. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time. We now have five people who dirty up the carpet with all sorts of interesting...um...tidbits and one person who literally trolls the carpet with her hand and then sticks it promptly in her mouth to enjoy whatever find she has collected, be it hair, sequins (I kid not!), play dough pieces or, ever a favorite, pieces of used tissue left on the floor by her elder sisters. I LOVE this time of childhood, can I just say. And now, even if I can clear a radius of all said tidbits, little miss can now crawl out of the safe radii and find something new and exciting that I may have missed.

Yep.

Exciting. Terrifying.

Maybe I can get a new vaccuum out of this. When Super J gets his job back...or gets a job...or whatever.

Miss E, showing me a "cute little chocolate" she got from Easter

Yesterday, Miss E had a preschool field trip to a farm, where the kids were going to see cows and pigs, etc. etc. Anyone who knows Miss E knows that this is right up her alley. She LURVES stuff like this. She was worried last week that she'd miss it because she'd end up getting strep, like Miss A (wait, I don't think I mentioned that...yeah, Miss A came up positive on the "long" strep test after passing the quick one last Friday. She's feeling better, but it was quite a comedy of errors getting her antibiotics to her as most pharmacies close at 6pm on Saturdays, which is when we found out about the strep. We did not know that at the time they close so early. We do now. sigh. Wal-mart's pharmacy opens up at 10am on Sundays. We also did not know that at the time but do now. ANYWAY!), but she prevailed and went off happily to school.

When Super J came home with her around noon, I excitedly asked her what happened and what did she see. She told me that she saw all sorts of pigs and piglets! And cows! And a pig snorted at her! Like this! And she blew her nose all over the place. It was gross, but funny.

Then Super J said he had something interesting to tell me, at which point Miss E said that she couldn't get out of the "race car." At least, that's what I thought she said. No. It turns out it was much more involved than that.

She had ridden over to the farm in DRAKE'S car (he's a fellow student). Oh. That makes more sense. But here's the kicker of the story. Once they arrived, all the other kids proceeded to get out of the van, but Miss E couldn't get the bottom part of the 5 point harness seat belt to unlatch (she had ended up sitting in someone else's car seat during a change from driving from one part of the farm to the next, because she normally just sits in her own booster seat, which HAD been sent with her). Unfortunately, NO ONE NOTICED that she never got out of the van and left her...in the van...with the doors locked and windows rolled up. For at least FIFTEEN MINUTES!

Here's where I have problems:

WHAT!!!!!!! Did Drake's mom not realize that she didn't have ALL THE KIDS THAT WENT INTO HER CAR, OUT OF THE CAR????

Thank heavens it was overcast outside and not a hot day. I mean, seriously! The thought makes me sick, even now.

On the other hand, thank heavens she was locked in the car and not abducted. This sounds terrible, but SERIOUSLY! No one noticed that she was not with "the group" for 15 minutes????? Can you imagine the head start someone could have gotten with a little girl for 15 extra minutes? Who was watching my child?

And here's what makes me sad. No one noticed she wasn't with the group for 15 minutes. Where were her friends? Where were the people who said, "Where is Miss E?" My sweet little Miss E, who is beautiful and has the kindest, sweetest heart. Who wouldn't want to be her friend? Admittedly, she does indeed live in her own little world much of the time. She's very content to play some imaginary game (often including rocks and literal trash she finds interesting) solitarily for long periods of time. She can get obsessive about things that drive me to the edge. But she's not invisible...is she? How could they not notice she wasn't there for 15 minutes???

Suffice to say, her teacher felt terrible when she found her, tear-streaked, in the car (her teacher was walking by and heard her). Suffice to say that it's a good thing that Super J picked her up and not me. Suffice to say that I've had a delayed reaction about this and am now pretty darn mad and have made an appointment to go in and talk to the teacher. Not to rip into her, but to try to find out how to prevent this from happening again and to try to figure out how we can help Miss E, so that this doesn't happen to her again.

Thankfully, she is safe and sound. She doesn't seem worse for the wear or the experience...But it could have been SUCH a TERRIBLE mistake. TERRIBLE. At this sweet little four year old's expense. And it makes me mad and sad at the same time.

Date Night Dancing the Night Away

Super J and I went out on a date tonight, in the middle of the week! ...by ourselves. NO baby. NO kids. Just us. Wowzers (and lets be frank: I did NOT think it was going to happen this morning when I decided I needed to clean out the girls closet instead of cleaning my house for my sister-in-law who was coming to watch the kids. Nothing like a good anxiety attack to make you feel human. By the way, Thanks Aunt D for watching the girls! And cousin Lauren. You guys are SUPER FANTASTIC!). We went to a theatre and watched young BYU Ballroom Dancers/students shimmy and shake their groove things in a very modest and wholesome way. It was totally awesome.

So, end result: we went out on a date by ourselves. Our baby years are behind us. We realized we are old and flabby because there is NO WAY we could do any of that fancy dancing for 2 HOURS. Holy smack, Gentle Reader. It was so impressive. Heck, I was tired after watching them, and all I did was sit in my chair with little legroom while the sweet but elderly man sitting next to me randomly passed gas my way every time he shifted to get a better view of the dancers. I kid you not. Thus, it was kind of like a game of chess because every time he moved, I pretended to focus on the costumes at that point, which were often simply lovely, and lean towards Super J to get a better view...thank heavens he was sitting in the chair on the aisle so he had a little extra room for his wife who was unexpectedly leaning through at least a third of the performances (I bet the people behind us HATED me. Oh well! Either that, or they thought *I* was the one passing gas. OH DEAR. Perish the thought!). Ugh. Yay memories.

ANYWHOO!

It was a lovely evening. Just wanted to share and note the occasion.