No, Not Those!

Have you ever experienced so many emotions that you exhausted yourself?  Sure, with being a girl, that is a given.  But, it was just a roller coaster day for me.

The girls had a great night last night. We all woke up with the sun, in great spirits.  After breakfast, we decided to take a walk. It was a lovely, Sunday morning, and we went out to experience God's world just as he created it.  Madelyn just wanted to go scouting out the fun Halloween decorations. I didn't argue with her over that. I pick my battles. We ended up at the park. The sun was beaming down pretty hard, and I didn't have sunscreen, so we headed home after ten minutes of the swings.

Audrey went down for a nap easily, so I laid down, too.  Hannah wanted to watch Lion King, so I started that video for her. Madelyn was playing JumpStart on the computer.  Its Sunday. We can slack off a bit. I just laid in bed, however. My mind wouldn't shut down.

After Audrey woke up, and I fed her a snack, we loaded up and headed off to Lowe's.  There we found two hanging bird feeders and a ten pound sack of bird feed, a candle, and a lighter.  All four weren't related. Don't worry.

We got home and had lunch. The two youngest went down for their naps, and Madelyn and I were playing with her Barbies. We had a salon. We were really good at our jobs, too. I received a hundred dollar tip! Barbie is loaded.

I was watching the wonder that is my Madelyn for a bit.  She really is amazing. She is witty and fun and carefree. Most of the time. I started thinking about how much her Daddy must miss her.

We haven't heard from Jay in ten days. He was stuck at a camp awaiting transport, but that was several days ago. I know that he wants to call us as badly as we want to hear from him, but the anxiety is killing me.  If you know me, anticipation is really half of the thrill of anything coming my way.  But, this is a little overboard.  The girls have Huggee Daddy Dolls to hold at night. They are little Army men that I put Jay's face on the head.  I don't have one of those.

Before Jay boarded the plane, a few hours after I had left him that emotional night, he sent me a text.

"I love you, and miss you terribly."

Those were the last words he sent me. I love texting. It is so convenient and easy. I told him a few days before he left how much I was going to miss texting him.  He sent me one last message to keep and read whenever I got sad. And, I did read it quite often.  Until two days ago.  My mailbox was full and I had to delete texts.  Instead of deleting those that weren't as important, I just deleted the entire inbox without thinking.

Crap.

So, I started dwelling on that today. And I got sad. I felt everything. I felt ashamed, humiliated, and numb. I have done pretty well since he left. I am a survivor. I have to be. But those words were gone. The "From Jay" message was gone. Ugh.  What was there for me to do?

I baked a cake.  That helped.  It didn't help as much as eating a piece of it after supper.  Mmm. Cake.

After the girls woke up, we carved a thirty pound pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.

Yes, Hannah's leg is blue. She wanted to be a Smurf, and sidewalk chalk was the answer. So was a bath, afterwards.

It was only four thirty, so we loaded up to go to the P/X.  It has been cold in my bed without Jay. Extra blankets didn't help. I was going to get an electric blanket with my birthday money. The girls had fun picking out a toy for the Toys for Tots program. They didn't whine that they didn't keep it. I was pretty proud of them.  We were about to leave and I remembered that I needed bandaids.  So I swerved down that aisle.

I was gazing at the first aid supplies when Madelyn and Hannah started singing. I didn't pay much attention to them, other than to the fact that they were loud.

"You guys! Quiet down! I need to grab something, then we can go deliver your toys like Santa!"

"What is it you need mom? Is it THESE?" Madelyn struck a Vanna White pose in front of some supplies. Hannah copied her.

"Yea, Mom! You need THEEEEEZ?"

I glanced up at them to smile and tease them about how cute they were. Then I noticed what they were presenting to me.

Madelyn had Trojan condoms, ribbed.

Hannah had KY Yours and Mine held high above her head.

OH LORDY!

"NO, NOT THOSE!" I was so embarrassed and mortified, and entertained at the same time. I realized that if I had not reacted so suddenly and panicky, that they would have just dropped them and we could have gone on our way. But, no. They had to ask why I was so objectionable.

"Why, Mom? What are they? What do they do?"

I asked if they wanted to keep their toys.

They said yes.

And by distraction, we made a quick exit from that aisle and bee-lined straight for the nearest checkout stand without another word.

Whew!

I was really proud of them.  When we got out to the front, they still wanted to donate their dolls.  Those girls are keepers! And I will be laughing about this experience for so, so long.

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