the good and the so-bad-I-don't-know-that-I-should-blog-about-it

Hmmmm...I'm not sure how to begin this post, so I think this first draft will just be chronologically accurate. David took the kids on our family's four-day escape to our favorite cabin in the woods last week. I didn't go and the decision was spontaneous...but glorious! I don't know if you remember in November when I posted that I spent my first night alone in my own home, but now I have had three nights alone, in a row, in my own house.

What did I do? I did what I'm always blogging about - I worked in my art room. Two days of work and then a night out and sleepover with a friend who I never get to see. Glorious. Really. If you are a mom and you haven't shoved your family out of your home so you could have it all to yourself, um, do it now. Today. Schedule this time for yourself. Today. Did I already say TODAY?

So then the kids, the dogs and the husband came home happy, sun kissed, filthy and my shift began on Camp Mama. We learned to blow bubble gum bubbles, we took walks, we learned Backgammon. Nothing flashy, but good days.

And then came the bad. Last Friday while we had two friends here and my 3-year-old niece, our dog got into Faith's rat's cage, chased him in a very dramatic and traumatic way down our stairs and killed him in front of everyone - six kids in my house. Five kids screaming in total fear and powerlessness. I'm not being a drama queen when I write that in hindsight I feel like I got a taste of what hell must be like in those three seconds of hearing the screams, racing downstairs and shoving everyone outside because our pet's death was inevitable. I've never heard my children scream in fear and powerlessness.

To those of you who don't "get" this because he was just a rat, I know. I know. But could you just stop reading and come back tomorrow because we loved this rat, we took responsibility for him and his life and even though this was an accident in the purest form...this death was preventable. And devastating. We only had him for five months and we didn't keep him safe. So we're mourning over here, over a rat no less and we're healing and walking gently with each other in this sadness. And Faith is working hard to forgive our dog for being exactly who he is - he's the least to blame really.

The comic relief in all of this was that my niece didn't really understand what was happening and she was absolutely fine - no fear, no screaming, no "processing" it when all was done. I got a very sweet email from my sister-in-law saying that my niece probably won't need to talk about what happened until she is sitting in class on her first day of school. This is still making me smile as my house heals.

Ugh. So I know I've written that this blog is meant to record the happy days, but it felt weird to come back to blogging without making note of our whereabouts. And this failure and death and sadness and bleh....

Bleh....

So there you have it. xo

Note: The photo is my fam's first attempt at light drawing. They loved it!