Gasin' Up

I thought I would make a few attempts to just simply write about our days here.  A journal of daily life as we continue to adjust, and because I know that looking back can help me remember how far we have come.  Looking back brings encouragement when looking forward seems so dim and dark.

Overall, today went pretty well.  It was the "second" first day back to school, as we had a long weekend with the kids being home Friday and Monday.  I expected Mercy to be clingy, so I prepared accordingly and sure enough she was.  She had Vision and Speech Therapy this morning and being clingy, along with her desire to write her own agenda made her fairly uncooperative.  We got through the two sessions, but I can't say I felt either was productive or moved her forward today.  Once her therapists left she was stuck to my hip until lunch time.  After lunch we played for a bit and then got ready for nap time.  Today she fell asleep in my arms before she was even finished with her bottle.  I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish during nap time, but let it go to just soak in the moment of holding her.  She has been home with us for a little over three months and I think I can still count on one hand the times she has actually slept in my arms.  She normally fights it.  So I knew this was a rare and important moment to take in.

She woke up happy.  That is also a rarity.  Actually I don't know that she has ever woke up from a nap happy.  She has woken up happy in the morning, but never at nap time.  I guess she just needed to be held tight? 

Later this afternoon I had to run the kids to music lessons.  Since the weather was so beautiful I took the two littlest to the park in between.  Mason is such a sweet big brother to her.  He carried her up the steps, positioned her on his lap and held her tight as he took her down the slide.  As they reached the bottom she signed for more and he scooped her up and took her again.  I don't think Mason weighs to much more then Mercy.  She is a hefty little girl and he's a scrawny little boy.  He struggled to carry her, but he did it proudly and with great perseverance.   I loved watching them together.

Later tonight Mercy and I headed out to do some grocery shopping.  I would normally leave her home with Scott, but the other kids needed to finish up homework so I thought eliminating the sweet little distraction known as Mercy might help.  We got to the store and there was a pretty foul smell in the air.  As I opened the door to get her out she was pinching her nose closed. Cracked me up.

After shopping I stopped to fill the gas tank because we have another trip down to CHOP tomorrow.  As I was pumping the gas I could hear screaming from inside the car.  I opened the door to find her screaming, shaking and crying.  I knew instantly she was terrified because well one I've seen her like this many times before and two she was in the car alone as I was out pumping gas and it was dark.  I felt so bad for her.  I calmed her down a bit, but then I had to finish up at the pump and she screamed the whole two minutes I was outside of the van and she was in.  I never know what to do in this situations.  Moments like this can take what felt like a seemingly "normal" day and throw it right back in my face that our life right now is nothing close to normal.  It hurts, literally physically hurts my heart when I have to see her like that.  A two year old's eyes should not scream sheer terror the way hers do.  It's so wrong.  It's so sad.  It makes me an emotional mess because there are so many emotions it triggers.  I am just sharing this one moment here, but moments like this happen all the time.  I long for the day she realizes and trusts that I can be gone for a minute and I will be back.