That seems to be the theme of the entire last 30 days. It has been stress piled on top of crisis, and the only thing holding our family together is, well, the family. I have had hard times in my life before where I've wanted to crawl into bed, pull my covers up over my head, and utterly refuse to come out until the bad times have gone away and the sun is shining merrily again. It seems like ever since Dano came into my life, I don't have those kinds of days anymore. I have this amazing sense of foundation. Instead of problems driving me to my knees in defeat and leaving me wondering miserably who I am in all of it, I am driven deeper into the arms of my husband and child. In comparison, the problems never seem as big when faced with the miracle that is the Alexanders. My crises still come, but now I tend to buckle down, set my jaw, and figure out a way through them. Some terrible things have gone on in my lifetime, and I've never been able to stop or change a single one of them. But I have noticed that I live through all of them and come out on the other side a different person. Sometimes it's a minute change in my existence; sometimes it's a drastic life change that leaves me reeling. Either way, I always make it and come out on the other side. This set of crises won't be any different.
In an effort to distract ourselves from the goings-on of this terrible weekend, Lilah and I went to the Farmer's Market with Rob after Dano made us bagels. We wandered around there for a bit (Lilah was on her best behavior this time). Lilah got to sample organic oatmeal, homemade gnocchi in basil sauce, creamery blueberry yogurt, fresh baked flaxseed bread, and local honey peanut butter. Rob got a cider slush. After trying it, he offered me a sip. "Here, you've got to try some." I took an enthusiastic drink.
Lilah was behind a few paces and I heard her start to chant, "Lilah tie? Lilah needs to tie. Please tie? PLEASE TIE, MAMA? PLEASE?" I had no idea what she was on about. I took another sip of slush and she started to cry. "Lilah wants to tie it, Mama." I suddenly realized two things simultaneously. 1) We needed to continue our work with consonant blend pronunciation. 2) Lilah wanted to try the slush and believed she would die if she couldn't. We all shared it on the ride home and I made it a point to tell Dano what this new phrase meant so as to avoid future meltdowns and confusion.
After Lilah's nap, we all went to Stoney Creek Park in Shelby Township to swim and have a picnic. Lilah loved the lake, having (naturally) no fear of older children, deeper water, seaweed, fish, or drowning. She utterly rebelled against floating in her nice, safe little lily pad boat, opting instead for the open sea and trying to yank her hand out of ours as often as possible. After hauling my spluttering daughter out from under the water for the 80th time, I reflected that perhaps we should cut back on her viewings of Ponyo and have a few earnest family discussions on the realities of little girls who are not, and had never been, fishes.
We grilled chicken pizzas by the water as some storm clouds rolled in. Lilah devoured her entire pizza in between playing on the nearby playground and running wildly about. Some other little girls were walking up the slides, and she was attempting to do the same and falling down. They told her (snottily in my opinion), "You can't do it. Only big girls can." Then they asked me to watch them do what my daughter was trying hard to mimic. I told them to zip it and go play somewhere else if they couldn't be nice to a baby. Dano disapproved of this decision. I disapproved of snotty 7 year olds.
We got Dairy Park on the way home and put Lilah to bed. She cuddled up to her stuffed Minion from Despicable Me and told me she loved me before falling asleep. I closed her bedroom door and it wasn't work, school, money, or life on my mind. It was how blessed I was to have such a lovely family and how I couldn't make it a single day without them.
