It's a Conspiracy!

Ya'll, I have sooooo much to say! From wanting to go back to work to cooking some great food to Lily Ruth's first 'big' injury (don't worry, she's fine - I'm the one who's losing it!), but it feels like the interwebs and the rest of technology have conspired against me. Stupid technology.

First off, my laptop bit the big one. Apparently, it's hard drive failure. Lame. I had no idea how dependent I was on that dumb thing until it was gone. Not only does it have every photograph of Lily Ruth from the moment of her birth on, but it was portable and light and awesome. It also had bluetooth capability, so I could send pics directly from my phone to my laptop and add them to my blog in seconds. Now I have to e-mail them to myself, boot up the desktop, open my e-mail, download the picture then open my blog and add it. It's like the stone age over here! Who has that kind of time?

Also, we moved the desk and the desktop to another room. We didn't know that you can't just plug your router into any old cable outlet - it has to be a special one. So I moved the damn computer back into the guest room, but the desk remains in it's new home. So for three weeks, I've been using the computer ON THE FLOOR. Not conducive to writing. Not to mention that every time I sat on said floor, my legs went numb. Super lame. I finally called the cable company today. They're sending a technician out to hook me up on Wednesday! I have no idea why I waited so long to call.

As far as recipes go, I've got some good ones. I promise to get busy compiling them.

Since I don't want you to worry about Lily Ruth's catastrophe, I'll go ahead and tell you the whole shameful story. The thing is, I feel A-W-F-U-L. I made a selfish decision, and she got hurt.

We went to a friend's house last night. They have a 5-year-old daughter and a two story house. Lily Ruth and Ava had been up and down those stairs a minimum of 4 times without incident, so I let my guard down, and let them go off alone to play alone. I was tired of being Super Vigilant Mom. I wanted to play with the big kids... until Ava ran in screaming 'LILY'S HURT! LILY'S HURT!'

I raced to the stairs and found her lying on the staircase halfway down, face up, head pointed toward the foot of the stairs, clinging to the railing with one hand. Needless to say, she was screaming bloody murder. She had a huge raised bruise forming on her left cheekbone. I scooped her up and took her downstairs - I know, I know; I should have checked her neck first, but I was freaking out! We checked her over, and couldn't find any other contusions. I wanted to take her to the emergency room in case her cheek was broken. Don kept saying that she was fine, but agreed to take her if I truly wanted to go.

It was then that I almost passed out, started throwing up, and lost the vision in my right eye for about 5 minutes. What the hell?! I had to hand Lily Ruth off while she was still freaking out and begging for me. It was awful. The only good thing about my reaction was that by the time I could hold her again, I could tell that she really was fine. She kept saying 'Mommy, I happy!' because she thought that I was mad at her for crying :-/ I asked her what happened. She just stared at me and twirled my hair. I asked her if she was walking down the stairs and fell. She said 'Yeah - it didn't work!' That's all she'll say about it.

It was worse for Ava. Her mom had told her (unbeknownst to us) that she was babysitting Lily Ruth. She kept saying 'I hurt my first baby that I babysitted!' It took her forever to calm down despite all of our insistence that it was in no way her fault, that Lily Ruth was fine, and that nobody was mad at her. She finally agreed to sit on the couch next to Lily and I, but she couldn't look at her. Ava was playing with an i-pad, and Lily Ruth was watching tv. Without even looking at her, Lily reached over and started rubbing Ava's arm in an  absent-minded fashion. She grinned at me and said 'my friend is right here.' All of the tension left Ava's tiny body with a huge sigh, and she snuggled into Lily to show her how to work the i-pad.

Every time that I see her little bruised face, I want to cry. My stomach has been in knots since last night. What is a mother to do? I refuse to be a Helicopter Parent. I want to give her space. I want her to feel confident and independent. What if something worse had happened?!