"Mom, Where is our stuff going??!"

As I have mentioned a few thousand times, we are moving.  I am 8 months pregnant, have two boys that are 3 1/2 and a 1 1/2 and a husband who works full time and just spent a week away (during "crunch time") at a school for work.  On a scale of 1-10 my stress level is at about 12.  This all has gone as best as it could, but it doesn't stop me from worrying, stressing, panicking, and stressing some more.  Seriously, moving is no joke.  Moving with kids though is a total game changer.  They have feelings, fears, and serious questions that need to be satisfied, explained, and reassured.  Just because they are little doesn't mean that they are completely oblivious to what is going on around them.  The are very observant. Most of the time, a little too observant... which requires some creative explanations depending on the circumstance.  I am convinced that after my answers to many endless "why's" and different situations that I've had to explain, my kids are going to be like Adam Sandler in "The Waterboy"... "But my Momma said..." I may take a few creative liberties with facts once in a while.  Oops.
That brings me to our explanation to Mason as to where our, and more importantly, his stuff was going.  He was starting to get upset/nervous because he thought he would never see it again and someone was, essentially, stealing it.  Oh how the mind of a 3 yr old works.  We saw this coming so we tried to think of the best way to explain it ahead of time so he wouldn't have a total melt down as the guys were carrying boxes out the door.  We came up with the following:

"Optimus Prime will be coming to get our stuff.  Him and the other Transformers will protect it until they bring it to our new house in Staten Island.  You can talk to him, but because he will be in his "truck" form and there will be too many people around, he probably won't answer you." 

Winner of parents of the year award, I know.  It is one of his favorite cartoons, he knows who Optimus Prime is, he just got it, and any fear about our stuff being gone forever disappeared.  Boom! Genius.  Have to give credit to the hubs for this one... totally his idea.

The morning of the pick up it dawned on us "What if the truck is totally lame and looks nothing like Optimus Prime!!" Oh crap.  There goes our whole idea and Mason is going to lose it.  This is what Optimus Prime (according to the internet) is supposed to look like as a tractor trailer. 

We started to panic a little and back pedal on the Optimus Prime explanation with " He might be in a disguise so that no one recognizes him so it is easier to protect our stuff."  "He doesn't want the Deceptacons to know what his mission is so he might not look like what you expect"  Surprisingly, he totally bought it.  Crisis adverted.

Then the truck pulled up and looked like this...

Ok, so it doesn't look exactly the same, but it wasn't that bad and Mason continued to believe that it was Optimus Prime.  Whew! I even caught him telling his friend that Optimus Prime was there to pick up our stuff.  It was pretty funny.  Since the pick up, Mason has asked a couple of times where Optimus Prime is and we tell him- guarding our stuff.  That seems to be enough to satisfy his curiosity.

We have now survived the yard sale, the packing, the pick up, and we only have 3 more days of living in an empty house.  Only things left are packing up the cars and kids for a 3-4 day drive to South Jersey from Southern Mississippi (current route still undecided), a 2 month stay at the "Hendrickson Compound", have a new baby, and another little move to Staten Island.  Like my very wise 5 year old nephew Wyatt says.. "Easy Peezy, Lemon Squeezy" We got this... I hope.

"It's not my fault, when I was a kid, my Mom dropped me on my head"

Thinking back to all of my crazy days with the kids and all of their shenanigans I have always felt like, at those times, a total train wreck on wheels, a real hot mess- but never a bad Mom. Unorganized- yes, frazzled- yes, bad Mom- no.  I could look around and see people judging me and I could imagine them thinking- what a mess, but never a "bad Mom".  That was until tonight.

Today was a great day.  Today, my hubs was promoted to Chief Warrant Officer.  He was sworn into office by the Commandant of the Coast Guard... on the Commandant's plane.  It was a BIG deal.  I can't say enough how proud I am of him!  The boys had on little Coast Guard uniforms, Eric in a suit (looking as handsome as ever) so since this was such a big deal- I had to up my game.  I wore a nice dress- for the first time in probably a year, with platform sandals. A serious upgrade from my normal jeans, shirt, and sneaks... and lately- compression socks. Here we are... Team Horst- all fancy'd up!

The ceremony went great and we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate.  We picked Outback as our destination, and personally, I was pretty excited about a nice dinner out to celebrate Eric's promotion. On our way there it started to rain... In a horror movie this would be the point where the girl starts to go down the steps to the dark creepy basement where you just know something terrible is about to happen.

Still drizzling, we pull in to the restaurant and I get Cooper J out of his car seat while everyone else gets out and we head in.  The hostess leads the way to our table and I am following behind still carrying Cooper J.  Again, thinking back to that horror movie... the girl is now at the bottom of the steps and in the shadows you see the guy with the big knife standing behind her and you want to yell- TURN AROUND YOU BIG DUMMIE!!  

We are walking toward the table and get to where the other tables are and every parent's nightmare comes true.  My platform sandals, wet from walking across the parking lot, along with the off centered balance from being 7 months pregnant, even more off balance by carrying Cooper J... I. FELL. DOWN.  

Not like a little stumble, a full on FALL.  Flopped to my knees and elbows trying not to crush Cooper or Baby Dylan- but the worst part was that despite my best efforts, Cooper slipped out of my hands as my elbows hit the ground and his little head made a thump sound on the floor.  I am pretty sure that his body was already on the floor at the time of the thump, but I can still hear that sound echoing in my head.  It sounds a lot like "You are the worst Mom ever, thump.  You are the worst Mom ever, thump"  All I can think now is "technically" I dropped my kid on his head.  In that moment, the whole restaurant stopped.  Everything stopped and everyone stared.  I heard that gasping "ahhh", the "Oh my gosh's", the "Oh no!'s".  As if the knowledge that I had just fallen, unsure if my dress flew up and the whole restaurant saw my "goods"- which at 7 months pregnant with my 3rd child, to be honest, are not that "good", and my kids head just thumped the floor wasn't bad enough, I was MORTIFIED.  Most parents think that if you fall down while holding your kid that you would naturally just tuck and roll and your precious baby would magically inflate his bubble wrap coating and anyone who saw would stand up and cheer for you and your natural instincts. You take a bow and continue on like nothing happened.  Or better yet, you start to fall, toss your kid in the air, tuck and roll yourself and then pop up in time to catch the kid who is now happy and laughing.  Well, it all happened so fast that I had no real thoughts of tucking nor rolling, so I can attest that there is a slight natural instinct not to totally pancake your child.  The "thump" proved, however, that Cooper J missed out on the magic bubble wrap coating that pops out when necessary.  Dang it.

It really wasn't that bad- it seems much worse in my head and I felt terrible for Cooper- I mean he now has that excuse when he is older- "it's not my fault- my mom dropped me on my head when I was a baby".  Again, dang it.  

The waiter brought a bag of unnecessary ice and the manager came and checked on us... twice.  She even wanted my information so she could check on us to make sure we were ok.  Honestly, I wanted to think that she was genuinely concerned because she was really nice, but I also thought that she saw a pregnant chick holding a baby "slip and fall" in her restaurant.  I could see the panicked "oh crap she might sue" look in her eye.  I wanted to reassure her that we were not going to sue them for my lack of balance accentuated by shoes that I despite my best effort couldn't walk in... but I just said, "No, we are fine, I promise!"

Overall, physically, Cooper J and I are fine. I can not say the same about my pride.  It is hurt. I feel like a bad Mom.  I now can add this to the list of train wreck events that pepper my journey in motherhood.    And for the record, I will be wearing flats for not only the duration of this pregnancy, but probably for the rest of my life.  I have lost my fancy shoe "girl card".  That is what happens when you fall down in public...