It could have been me

All these stories I've been reading about parents losing their babies, it sends chills up my spine that I could have been one of them. Today I took both of the girls outside to play on the deck. I was sitting in the swing, just relaxing in the shade watching them play together. I closed my eyes for a minute (I could still hear them) and opened them when I realized it was quiet. Clarity was no longer on the deck. Ariel had her back turned and I asked where Clarity was. Ariel goes walking around the deck and told me she didn't see her. I immediately jump up. I go running around calling her name. No answer. I run down the driveway and look, but don't see her so I figured I must have missed her up by the house. I figured maybe she was just playing her little quiet game, kind of hiding to the side while I look for her, which she tends to do. After a minute or two, I realized she wasn't up here and went tearing back down the driveway. I peek down further by the communtiy mailboxes and see her tiny body looking up at me. I go running down as fast as I could. When I reach her, I pop her butt twice and tell her that it was a no no to go down there and then I scooped her up and couldn't stop loving and kissing up on her. Poor Ariel had been in hysterics the whole time and praying out loud that God would keep her sister safe and help us find her. After I brought Clarity back up, Ariel continued to cry for at least 15 more minutes saying how much she missed and loved her baby sister. Heartbreaking. My feet are killing me with cuts and scrapes from running on the rocky pavement without shoes, small price to pay for losing my child!

Even though Clarity was only missing for maybe five minutes, it felt like an eternity to us. The whole time I was calling her name and searching for my precious baby, the thoughts of these other parents that had lost their babies ran through my mind. I was envisioning the worst and imagining my life without her. It was honestly the worst feeling I had ever had. The beating myself up and thinking I'm the worst mother possible hasn't let up too much even though this happened a few hours ago. All the "what ifs" keep running through my head. I mean we live in a small community and usually the only people that go up our side of the drive are us or one of our neighbors who are seaosonal and in their Florida homes right now. But there is never any traffic. Yet my mind keeps thinking "What if today there had been somebody. What if my baby had been hit and killed?" If I hadn't closed my eyes for that brief moment this wouldn't have happened. ugh. It just kills me. I just thank God soooo much that she's okay. That we're all okay right now. I ended up telling Jesse what happened, I was horrified at the thought that he would think I was some kind of idiot mom, but he just told me that kids are quick and we need to keep her inside today as a means of teaching her a lesson.

So there's the big story of my day. Pretty crappy one! Other than that, the heat is horrible. Our heat index is over 100 degrees and it's just so yuck! During the whole Clarity episode, I was sweating and sick. It took a while after getting back in the A/C to get rid of the nausea that started to overtake me after I calmed down.

Jesse only did four trouble calls today, so he got home pretty early. He said he heard a rumor that the company he works for is about to go under. Please God no. We cannot handle anymore financial strain. Our luck has been terrible since his dad moved here. He must've brought some bad voodoo with him or something the punk. Hopefully they're not doing all wonderful, after the mess they pulled with us. I hope they're hurting too. Who knows. All I know is Karma is a you know what, and someday, they'll get theirs. I just need to keep praying and looking on the bright side. God will see us through. He always does.