#confuseme

It finally happened.  After being gone for 6 years, I finally moved back to North Carolina.  I wasn't sure I would ever get to come back, and I never really thought I would end up back in the area that I grew up.

Prior to my move, I was jacked up on excitement.  This was my place.  It was always home.  I lived all over the Greensboro area growing up, and I knew that I was returning to a place of familiarity.  That was comforting since I was basically starting my life over!  I had so many friends and family close by and this would be fun.  I was so ready to get back I couldn't stand it.

In the excitement, I didn't even think about the fact that almost every single person I knew in the Greensboro area is married.  They are all moms with their own family lives now, and the life I knew in this area once upon a time was over.

Being a single parent in your 30s or 40s, is a little bit of a gut check.  You are no longer in the phase of life that all of your friends are in.  Let's face it, married folks tend to run with married folks.  So that left me in a strange place.

How do you make friends in the same phase of life you are in when you also have kids to take care of?  When you are raising kids alone, you find that you have more alone time than you know what to do with.  I enjoy my alone time, in fact, I often crave it!  But, there are days that I don't want to be alone.  The days when you have been alone enough and you just want to hang out with someone!  Days when you need adult interaction with someone who makes you laugh.

I felt this starting to happen after the New Year, so I started a part time job.  The job I took on was flexible enough for me to be at home when the kids are home, but still bring in a little money doing something I enjoy.  I am not in an office, and most of the people I work with are also... MARRIED!
Obviously this means, making single friends at work won't be happening!

So now what?! It is a weird place to be!  It is a strange season of life, and I am eager for it to pass.
There are a lot of pros to being single in my 30's, but I am finding cons too.  This is without a doubt the biggest con I have found.  I got married so young, and in fact, was one of the first people I knew my age to get married.  When I was having babies, it seemed like most of my friends were getting married.  Now my babies are kids, and most of the people I know have babies of their own.

Cut to my marriage ending.  I hope that the friends I know and love don't have to deal with this headache down the road, but we are now living very different lives.  Without a coparent to share custody with on the regular, I find myself at home ... ALONE ... a lot.

I have learned to love my house.  I have watched a LOT of Netflix.  I have grown to love social media for new reasons.  I have found myself taking risks and trying new things when I get the chance.  I have found a love for my mini workouts.  I have found myself, really.  I had kind of forgotten who that Jessica chick was.  She is pretty cool, and she is ready to meet some single friends and have a life again!

I guess I just call 1-800-findafriend, right?!  #thisisaweirdseasonoflife #confuseme

21,900 Days Ago

The morning of the tragedy, she looked adorable!

It has been 5 years, but I can still remember every single detail.  It was one of the worst days of my entire life, and certainly the worst day of hers.  She was 3, and so completely innocent.  She had spent the morning at preschool, and I had spent the morning at a friend's house.  It was a planned morning with several other moms in which we worked hard to finish a project.  

After preschool she came to my friend's house to play with her daughter while I finished the project at hand.  I was working hard and so close to being finished.  My friend gave the girls a snack, and when they were finished they headed to the back yard to play.  Neither of us had a clue that they went outside, but the yard was fenced.  We wouldn't have stopped them if they had told us that was their plan.  

***WARNING : GRAPHIC PHOTO CONTENT BELOW***

The next 30 mins plays out in my head like an episode of Rescue 9-1-1.  Do you remember that show?  Narrated by William Shattner, so please read this part in his voice!

Molly & Abbie finished their snack, and headed to the back yard to play on the swing set.  They were excited to play and ran past their shoes.  Molly pulled the sliding glass door open, and they stepped out onto the back porch.  They headed down the stairs to the path that headed out back.  The path was made of black slate pavers which were surrounded by mulch.  It was the hottest day so far that year and the sun had been baring down on the back yard all morning.  Molly made it to the path first, and chose to walk in the mulch knowing that is was soft, and the pavers were hot.  Abbie, however, was unfamiliar with this pathway and decided to avoid what looked like sharp mulch and walk on the pavers.  

Molly's mom was washing dishes at the sink, and I was in the dining room.  We both were blind sided when Molly came running into the kitchen in panic.  "Abbie is hurt really bad, she is crying.  Come outside right now."  I jumped up and looked out the window, but I saw no sign of Abbie.  Molly's mom was looking out the kitchen window and saw nothing either.  She beat me outside and found Abbie lying on the ground screaming in pain.  She picked Abbie up and carried her up the steps of the porch.  I was looking for anything, any sign of a broken bone, blood, or bee sting.  What on earth could be causing this kind of pain?  

That is when I noticed that she had her feet curled up tight.  It was unusual, and since she was being carried into the house, it was obvious that something had happened to her feet.  We sat her on the sofa and I immediately grabbed her ankles to look at her feet from the bottom. I remember thinking there is absolutely no way on earth that this could be as bad as it looks.  Her feet literally looked like they had been melted.  How?  I mean, HOW???  What melted her feet???

My mind was racing, and trying to think of any Pinterest hack I had seen for burns.  I could think of nothing.  I am honestly not the fastest on my feet in emergency situations.  So I told Molly's mom to fill a bowl with ice water as fast as possible, and grab 4 washcloths.  

I put ice cold cloths on her feet and the second they got warm, I switched them with the ones soaking in ice water.  Every single time I put the cloths on her feet, you would hear a slight sizzle.  What in God's name happened to my baby girl?  I just couldn't make sense of this.  There was no way that I could put her in a car and she needed pain meds FAST.  So I called 911, and it wasn't long until I heard the sweet relief of sirens approaching the house.  I scooped her up and ran outside.  They put her on the stretcher and looked at her feet.  The responders seemed to be just as surprised and confused as I was.  They went back to look at the scene of the accident to try and get a better grasp on what happened, and began working on a pediatric dose of morphine to give Abbie on the way to the hospital.  That ambulance ride was the longest ride of my life.  I didn't think we would ever make it and the meds weren't kicking in fast enough.  She was in so much pain, and I couldn't take it away.

After seeing the ER doctor on duty, they bandaged her feet up, and the pain meds finally started working their magic.  The doctor said her burns were second degree, and might be about 25% of each foot.  He wanted to see her in 24 hours to see if any changes occurred and reassess the burns.  So, we headed back the following day.  When the bandages were removed, the doctor actually gasped.  He said he was not aware of how significant the burns were or how much of her feet had been affected the day before.  Abbie had what this doctor called 2 1/2 degree burns.  The nerves hadn't been damaged but the level of damage done was very close to 3rd degree burns.  Every single toe had been burned as well.  This meant that Abbie walked onto the pavers on the balls of her feet.  Almost trying to tip toe.  When her feet began to burn, she was in so much pain that she went into shock and virtually froze.  Her feet continued to sear on the stones until she fell over.  As the doctor described this to me, my heart sank.  As a mom, all you want to do is prevent your kids from suffering, and I had failed miserably.  

The burns had to be debrided at a burn unit, and that was another nightmare of epic proportions.  We held her down while they cut the blisters off to prevent infection and aid in faster healing.  

It took weeks for the burns to even begin showing signs of healing.  She refused to walk for several weeks, and we bandaged the wounds every day.

Eventually, she was able to stop wearing what she called her "special socks".  However, it was another month before she would take a bath without actual socks on her feet.  Her feet were so sensitive to everything.

Soooooo, why on earth am I telling you guys this horror story?  Today, is Abbie's 5 year Burniversary.  That is right, we celebrate this day!  Why?  Because we all have a little PTSD from it, and because it keeps a very valid reminder in our head... 

WEAR SHOES WHEN YOU GO OUTSIDE.  

How do we celebrate it?  Well, we buy a pair of shoes every year on this day of course!!

And her shoes this year are adorable!!  In fact, her mom has 2 pairs that match in different colors!

Our 2018 Burniversary Shoes

She loves her new shoes, and couldn't believe it has been 5 years since that happened.  Kids don't remember a lot of stuff from when they were 3, but that day is not one we will ever forget.  

If I never have to hear my children in pain like that again, it would be too soon.  And it this post helps prevent even a single child from suffering the same pain as Abbie, than it was worth typing!

5 years.  21,900 days.  525,600 hours.  31,536,000 minutes.  1,892,160,000 seconds.

And yet, it feels like yesterday.

Happy 5th Burniversary Abbie girl.  I love you...

My Bucket List

If you have spent time around me much, you have probably heard me say that I didn't have a bucket list!  I have said it many times, and I had good reasons.  I look at every opportunity I have as a gift, and I am grateful for every experience I have had.  However, I consider myself pretty blessed, and there isn't much I feel I need to do before I "kick the bucket"!!  Over the last month or so though, I decided to start compiling a list of things that I really wanted to do before my time here is up, and the list grew quicker than I anticipated it would.

Have you ever stopped and thought about the little things that you may want to accomplish or experience in your lifetime?  No matter who you are, there are so many things you have done yet, so much of the world you haven't seen yet, and so much you probably want to do!

My list is in absolutely no order whatsoever, but everything on it is something I seriously want to do!
I have accomplished and experienced a lot in my 33 years, but I am far from finished!
So... drumroll please!  Here is my list.

And there you have it!  I guess I have some work to do to check some of these things off my list.  You don't learn another language by binge watching the newest Netflix series!  

Life is short, and I don't want to waste the rest of mine.