she came in through the bathroom window

...sometimes, when you have a feeling you should do something, you should take that as a warning and go ahead and do it. case in point, just last week, i had the feeling that we should remove the lock from our bathroom door before cadence locks herself in there. that thought went in one brain cell and out another (such is the plight of a working mom who has no interest in being an ALPHA working mom). well, sure enough, we had some of my high school friends over last night, and while all the grownups were busy yakking away, cadence managed to shut herself in the bathroom and turn the deadbolt.

i managed to hear her banging on the door and yelling for me, so i went to see what the ruckus was. at first, i thought ted was in there with her, as he hadn’t been w/ the rest of us in the dining room. then when i saw that he was in the living room doing magic tricks for my friend jen’s 5 year old son vinnie, i knew we were in trouble, everybody, which included my friends josh, connolly, olarn, jen, her son vinnie, ted and myself, immediately crowded around the area outside the bathroom door.

by this time, cadence was hysterical and screaming and crying in a way that almost made ME lose it. she just kept banging on the door and desperately rattling the doorknob, even though we kept trying to get her to turn the lock. she just didn’t understand what we were saying, or was too frantic to follow instructions. i’m sure if i’d been on the other side of the door, she would’ve just played around until she figured out how to turn the lock again. i guess when a child is that little and that terrified, they just don’t think straight, and i don’t blame her.

in the meantime, we tried unscrewing the doorknob, which did no good as there was no keyhole behind the encasement of the knob. we didn’t want to kick down the door (like they do in the movies) because cadence was on the floor right behind the door, and we didn’t want to hurt her. i called my downstairs neighbor diane who used to own the building to ask her if she had any idea what we could do, but it being a deadbolt, she didn’t have any suggestions. we decided the only thing to do was to tear the doorframe away, so connolly and i ran down to the basement to find a crowbar. i don’t know what i would’ve done if connolly hadn’t been w/ me, as i was so frantic that i couldn’t even find the light to the tool room. connolly found it, thank goodness, and he had the presence of mind to locate the crowbar too. i didn’t even know what a crowbar would look like, let alone locate it in a tool room i’d been in a total of once before.

cadence had exhausted herself and fallen asleep by this time, as evidenced by a lack of response from the other side of the door. of course, being the paranoid freaked out mommy, i was ready to jump out of my skin because i couldn’t somehow walk bodily through that door like a ghost (or jesus) and scoop her into my arms and make sure she was actually alive and breathing. well, with the help of the crowbar and the sheer muscle power of my friends and after what seemed like HOURS, we finally managed to pry the door open.

i rushed into the bathroom and found little cadence, asleep facedown on the cold tile floor right behind the door. i gathered her up into my arms and she woke up and immediately resumed her hysterics where she had left off. i started crying too and had to go into the living room to compose myself. she sounded so sad as she cried in my arms—a mixture of residual fear of having been abandoned and relief at being reunited with and reassured of mommy’s love. she soon calmed down and kept saying over and over, ‘i’m okay. i’m okay. the door. the door. i’m okay. i’m okay.’ she told us in the few words she had that she’d been sad but now she was okay, and she was so sweet and tender with everybody who had taken part in the rescue. she even kissed the door as a gesture of goodwill and forgiveness before going to bed that night, telling it she was okay now. i swear, that kid KILLS me with how sweet she can be sometimes...

...in retrospect, i am intrigued by how primal my urge to claw through the door was. the helplessness i felt at the time was just devastating. i knew that cadence was safe and that we’d get her out, even if it would mean calling in the fire department. still, it was unbearable to me that she would think we had abandoned her and that we wouldn’t be coming to scoop her up into our arms and that she was being LEFT. ALL. ALONE. we have never let her cry-it-out for sleep training purposes, and she has always had at least another comforting adult (grandma, uncle, church friend) to hold her if we weren’t around when she was crying. so this was literally the first time she’s experienced a sense of abandonment without the availability of a shoulder to cry on, which i think would have made a world of difference.

...anyhoo, i am so thankful that my friends were there to help keep me calm and to reassure me that it was all going to be okay soon. i’m sure if it had just been ted and me, i would’ve been absolutely no help. most likely, i would've assumed the fetal position on the floor and rocked myself back and forth until the whole ordeal was over.

suffice it to say, that lock will not be going back on the door…

all boo-boos...great and small

...early saturday morning, soon after ted had left for work, i heard a loud *THUD* that made my heart sink down to my stomach. i ran into the bedroom, and sure enough, cadence had literally rolled all the way across from the middle of our giant full-sized-plus-queen-sized bed, flat onto her face onto our hard wooden floor. in the still dark room, i didn't realize the extent of the damage until my eyes adjusted enough to see that her mouth and chin were a bloody mess which FREAKED ME OUT. luckily, she hadn't broken any teeth, and the blood was all from a busted lip and nothing that would require stitches or anything. still, it was unnerving for me as i had never seen cadence that bloody before. this is the first time she's fallen out of bed in her sleep that i can remember. we put a pillow on the edge of the bed, which normally gets her to roll in the opposite direction, but for some reason, the pillow must have fallen off.

i know that booboo looks pretty nasty, but she didn't seem to be in too much pain, as she nursed just fine right afterwards. but i did feel awful whenever i looked at her throughout the day for letting her fall out of bed like that. normally, i sleep in with her on saturday mornings until she wakes up, but for some reaon, i felt like waking up early yesterday. just goes to show that you should never pass up an opportunity to catch some more z's.

...i finished a book yesterday by brian mclaren called 'the story we find ourselves in.' this is the 2nd book in mclaren's trilogy of "nonfiction novels" about a pastor's rediscovery of christian faith. i read the other two books in the trilogy already, and i have to say that this may be my favorite one. maybe it's because i love reading fiction more than nonfiction that seeing christianity as a narrative as opposed to a set of dogmas or beliefs is appealing to me. i highly recommend this book for anyone who doesn't have much exposure to christianity and wonders what all the fuss is about, and for those who are or were raised as christians and aren't satisfied with a generic, cookie-cutter faith.

then last night, dave and becki came over for dinner and we watched a documentary called 'why we fight' about the american "military industrial complex," a term coined by eisenhower in his farewell speech. i didn't see the whole movie, as i was playing with cadence in another room for much of it until she went to sleep, but i was still pretty heavily impacted by some of the images in that film which were so disturbing, esp. clips taken at the baghdad morgue of rotting corpses just thrown together in big piles--men, women and children.

...i thought back to earlier that morning when cadence had her fall, and how much the sight of her blood upset me. and that was nothing compared to what so many mothers and fathers are seeing happen to their children around the world. i cannot fathom a life overshadowed by the constant fear of bombs and bullets, not just for oneself but for one's entire family as well. what kind of a world is this that we have created for our children?

and i thought back to something i had read in the brian mclaren book earlier that day, about how the ultimate fight is not one that can be fought with bombs and guns and machetes, but one that can only be fought with love and peace and forgiveness. if our president claims to be doing god's will, and our secretary of defense does "what the good lord tells him is best for our country", i can't help but wonder whose voice(s) they're actually hearing when they pray.

jesus lived during the height of the roman empire. but he never seemed to care too much about fighting the roman oppressors or seeking revenge for all the wrong that had been done to the jews. instead, he proclaimed "blessed are the peacemakers" and to turn the other cheek and to love your enemies and to repay evil with good. it may seem like he was telling people they needed to let others walk all over them, and his way may sound weak. but when you think about it, in the long run, the only way to overcome evil IS with good, with love, with kindness. if you love your enemies and are good to them, there is no way they can win.

the terrorist attacks of september 11th traumatized our entire nation. however, i think that we could have reacted differently. what if instead of being gripped with fear and hatred, we as a nation had reached out to the world's muslim community and embraced them and acknowledged that those terrorist acts were not representative of the muslim religion? what if we had done something crazy like choosing to forgive? i keep thinking about the example the amish have shown us in recent weeks of the power of forgiveness and returning evil with good. i think a lot of people who used to think the amish were a bunch of luddites may view them differently now.

somebody has to be the one to choose to forgive and to love first, or else the cycle of hate and violence will never end.

...there's something else that jesus said that i've been thinking about. something to the effect of 'what good will it be for a man if he gains the world yet forfeits his soul?' and by that, i don't think he means going to hell. i think you lose your soul when you continue to choose greed and selfishness and powermongering above love and peace and kindness and selflessness. america has positioned itself to be the world's only superpower, but has it been at the cost of its soul? is it worth being the richest and most powerful country in the world, if it's at the cost of knowing how to love and care for one another or being able to swallow your pride and lay down your weapons without fear or being faithful stewards of our priceless environment?

there's lots i'm mulling over in my mind and heart these days, lots i don't have adequate words for. there's so much darkness and pain and crap in the world these days, but i'm still going to choose hope. why? how? because when i look at my daughter's face every day, i just can't help it...