Maybe the glass is just too small

As I am sure everyone has, there are days when I am just so annoyed and every little thing sets me off.  I can’t lie, this typically coincides with days that my three-year-old is being a handful.  You can only hear so many tantrums before you start to feel like having one yourself.  Or what about the days when you are already running late and frazzled and realize that you forgot this or that and now you are even more late.  It’s easy to think what a crappy day you are having and have a little pity party, I know I have attended more than one.  However, looking at the whole picture, I have to attempt I have it pretty good.

What you might be saying, is Erin being optimistic?  I am a self-proclaimed glass half empty kind of girl (I said this yesterday and a friend said “no” in a mocking tone).  Right now I know two different families that are going through such heartbreak that it makes my “bad days” look like a joke.  Family number one is dealing with a nasty tumor that is offering an average lifespan of 8 years.  I can’t imagine being given those numbers and this family has three little ones under four.  The second family has a little boy less than two weeks old who stopped breathing last week and has been in the hospital ever since.  He isn’t able to breathe on his own for long and there doesn’t look like there is much that can be done for him.  He doesn’t seem to be in pain and his family can hold him, but tears spring to my eyes just typing about him.  It makes my morning of children screaming because they just want me to spend time with them look like a walk in the park not the nightmare I had made it out to be in my head.  I guess all it takes is just a little change in perspective…

Mom, why did the bad guys take our computer?

This is a common question now in our house after it was broken into last week. We weren’t home and everyone is fine, but the whole thing is unsettling. The girls and I came home from Stroller Strides last Tuesday, and I ran Hadley up to her room as she was exhausted. I came downstairs and walked into the kitchen and noticed the laptop was gone. I briefly questioned if I had been using the computer in the living room (not a typical place for it) and looked over and saw the back window was open. I yelled to India to put on her shoes, grabbed Hadley and my purse and headed to the car. I realized while sitting in the car that when I had unlocked the house it didn’t seem like I had to turn the key much. The police came and checked out the area, and told us that there have been quite a few break-ins in the area, with laptops and jewelry being the prime target. The thief or bad guy only took our laptop and the Wii and all the games and controllers. We had quite a few other items of worth sitting out right next to the computer but I guess they weren’t interested in them. They were very clean about it, and I don’t even think they went up stairs; they just grabbed what they wanted and headed out the front door.

The whole experience has left me feeling both violated and heartbroken. I had thousands of pictures on the laptop, and was going to back them up on an external hard drive the same morning this happened, but had decided to do it after lunch while the girls were napping. Quite a few of the pictures are online, but I hadn’t uploaded nearly as many over the last year, so more pictures than I care to think about of Hadley are gone. I find myself jumping over any movement in the backyard, robins being the main culprit. I know that it could have been worse, but I wish the whole thing won’t have happened in the first place…