JACKANDRUBYstudios

quite literally, that’s all i’ve been hearing from my dear husband the last few weeks. finally past the nasty first trimester where i could count on one hand how many nights of solid sleep i had. i got caught up on every show imaginable and watched too many hours of Poker After Dark. i may even know how to play now. finally drenched with sleep and thinking semi-clearly,  my thoughts are bouncing from wall to wall. (chris has already decided that i am baking a little female in here since i was only this emotional with Ru.) i daydream of the absolute blissful chaos it will be to be a family of five: loud Christmas mornings, an always packed full car and family slumber parties in a packed king size bed eating pizza and watching Toy Story. to be honest, sometimes i worry too. i worry that we are no longer playing man-to-man defense here. come April, we flex to zone defense. without chris, ive run out of hands. 2 hands to three kids- the odds are stacked against me. settling me down, chris reminded me of how great a hand holder Jack is and that we will need to depend on him more.  see, we are both the oldest of three. we were both Jack at one time; the one in charge, the one with the power. ill have to remember to play that card very wisely…

xo

this face. it ran across my mind about 10,000 times in 5 minutes last night. hearing his panic and fright broke my heart. the most painful thing was he was all alone and he could only help himself. this will not be the first time i will feel like this i know but in retrospect, i could have prevented this one.  if i had it more together, he wouldn’t have been in the dark crying that he couldn’t find me. i’m so far from the perfect mom. i’m so imperfect in fact, id rather share this story so no one else has this story to tell.

we had some friends over last night for pizza and play. waiting on the curb to see goodbye,  J & R started to battle as usual. J knocked his sister onto the pavement because he was too rough with her. id warned him about his strength a dozen times that day. “TIME OUT! IN THE HOUSE!” off he went, head low.

i said goodbye to our friends and walked up the steps to our front door.

door. locked. VERY LOCKED.

stomach dropped. knowing every single other door in the perimeter of the house was locked, i went searching anyhow. i knew it. nothing was open.

i could hear him crying inside. he could feel my panic and it made me ache. i ran to the front door again and tried to explain to him how to unlock the heavy security screen door. he was so upset. through the tears, he couldn’t see the lock even if he wanted to. i calmly asked him walk to the other sliding glass door. we couldn’t work together enough to get the screen door open either. those stupid plastic sliding handles were in between me and my wailing boy.

i had one clear thought FINALLY. i had remembered that the back door’s screen door was broken off by me more than a month ago and was totally unlockable. i had been barking at Chris to fix it but in this moment i was so happy to have the procrastinator of fix-it projects. (like hed seen this coming or something.) so excited, i told him to go to the back door and id meet him there.

running through the pitch black with R on my hip, i stood at the back door waiting. no J. i banged on the door so hard my hand throbbed. no answer.

running back to the front of the house, i caught wind of his voice on the other side of the garage door. screaming, crying, panicking. “Mom! I cant see you! I cant find you! ITS SO DARK! HELP ME!”

through all the confusion, he’d gone to the wrong door entirely. he was locked in our garage in the pure pitch black.  let me remind you he is THREE. i can only think of this as his worst imagineable nightmare.

for over 5 minutes, i tried to remain cool and calm and have him follow the sound of my voice to the garage side door. for what feels like an eternity, he worked at the lock on the door. i could hear his chubby little hands working the door. he called for me the whole time and all i could say is, “i’m coming to get you…don’t worry…i’m right here…can you feel me hit the door?…that’s mommy…i’m here”

for what seemed like forever, i finally heard the “click” of the unlocking of the door. i scooped him up, his face drenched in tears and carried all 40 lbs of him up the stairs to our bed. i put R to bed and held him for about 2 hours until he fell asleep. he slept like a baby. maybe it wasn’t as traumatizing for him…maybe more for me. i was cruelly reminded that as he gets older hes going to have to fight for himself in the dark sometimes. that hurts, hurts hard. i hate the rules of life sometimes.

my simple little “PSA” is this: get yourself a spare key. put in a secret place or give it to a trusted neighbor. seems simple enough, i know. this is one fight in the dark you and your little ones don’t need.

xo.