It's pretty terrifying when you hear your little girl scream, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe!" Yet you are glued to your seat, and you cannot move. Your husband and friend jump from their seats around the fire and get to your girl.
"I can't breathe." It’s the worst thing I have ever heard, and it made my heart stop for a moment. The words that made me wonder, just for a second, what tomorrow would be like without my sweet girl, "I can't breathe." She had slipped. She had slipped on the step of our deck after climbing out of the pool. It was dark, she was excited, she was coming to me. She was coming to sit by the fire. Your husband, your friend, they are there comforting her, and making sure she is okay. Things finally connect, you manage to get your legs moving, and you run. You run. “I can’t breathe. Help me! I can’t breathe!” Reassuring words are spoken, “Breathe in through your nose; slow down your breathing like when we run.” “I can’t breathe! I think I’m going to die. I love you.” Oh, those words tore me up inside. She would be fine; she just had the wind knocked out of her, but she was scared. We all crowded around her, the other three kids, and the four of us adults. With my face close to hers I reminded her to take slow, deep breaths; I told her that she would be fine. A few minutes and her breathing was back to normal, but she was crying and sore. We all asked what had happened, how she fell. “I slipped. I fell backward, and then I fell forward, and I couldn’t breathe.” My sweet girl wanted to watch Frozen once we got her inside, she wanted to sleep in between her Momma and Daddy, and she told her brother she was sorry that his friend couldn’t stay the night now. She is fine now, a little bruised, a little sore, but she is fine.
Each year our elf, Buddy, leaves the kids each an advent calendar on the last day of November. Of course, I am the one who acquires the calendars at Aldi and always do this as soon as I see them out, usually this is at the beginning of November. This year was no different than any other and once I go the advent calendars home I found a nice hiding spot for them so that that kids could not find them.
This is a story about a girl I know and too many girls I do not know.
Today we found out that our son told a girl in his class that she was, “fat and ugly”. He was not the only child who did this, a friend of his also said these unkind words, but what he did was wrong. Something you should know about our boy is that he is a sensitive soul. If we tell him he needs to work on his chewing at the dinner table his feelings are hurt, oftentimes there are tears; this is why it surprised me that he would have done something so hurtful to another child.
![]() Today has been a rough one in the Clem household, part of the reason is that we are at the end of the first week of Christmas break and another part is that it is so cold outside we cannot get out to run around. My nine-year-old came downstairs to let me know that he had broken something. I immediately knew that the reason something was broken was due to the fact that he was using an old wooden cane as a sword (don't ask why we have this around...) and this caused me to be angry before I even saw the damage. R.J. felt bad, there were tears in his eyes and it was obvious that he knew what he had done was wrong; he had knocked a picture off of the wall and the glass had broken. Of course in the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal, nobody was hurt, the picture frame can easily be replaced, but he was being careless, and I lost my shit. I know that I said some things that I should have refrained from saying and that I could have handled myself better, but I did not. Once I took a couple of deep breaths I asked R.J if he understood why I was upset, of course he did. I asked him if this was different from the time he knocked a vase over at my brother's house, and he said it was, he knocked the vase over because who puts a three foot tall vase next to the fireplace when they are going to have a house full of kids? R.J. was standing next to the fireplace with his cousin and just backed into it...boom, shattered glass, immediate tears, but he was not at fault because he was not being rowdy or rambunctious. I then told him to go get the broom and dustpan and help me clean up the mess, I gave him a hug, told him I loved him, and the moment was over.
|
Libby ClemHere you will find my thoughts on various topics. Often cynical, never apologetic, deal with it. Archives
January 2020
|