Anyone who has been the parent of young child has to have asked themselves the question "what are you thinking?"
This has been an especially challenging and puzzling day. Anyone who has seen the TV today knows that we had all kinds of flooding problems in the Oklahoma City area.
We started our day with a plan to all ride to work together. The impetus of that plan was Melissa's lack of desire to put gas in her car and if she rode with me she wouldn't have to fill up until at least tomorrow. First thing out of the box today, we were behind schedule because we overslept - that is Melissa and I overslept - Elizabeth was up before 6 am and came into our room to lay down on the floor. When we finally crawled out of bed at 7:30 it was time to rush, rush, rush. Hunt for your umbrella. Look for your raincoat. And out the door we went into the falling rain.
I'll skip the details of the drive in, but ultimately we ended up at May and 29th where the intersection appeared completely flooded and a fire engine with lights flashing was blocking our intended path down 29th Street. Seeing all the water and stranded cars, we made the smart decision to head back home. We told Elizabeth we couldn't get through the water to Sylvia's house and she began to ask if Grandma was OK. We tried to reassure her that everything was good, but the fire engine and flashing lights scared her and she was upset that something was wrong at Sylvia's.
When we finally got back to the house, Elizabeth insisted on calling Grandma and whatever they talked about (it was in Spanish so I couldn't understand) ended up making Elizabeth cry because she was worried about her Grandma.
It wasn't 60 seconds later that all was forgotten and our 4-year-old was looking for something fun to do in our house. And yes, we've been trapped inside all day.
But worry about Grandma wasn't far away. Throughout the morning and into the early afternoon as we watched the news coverage of the flooding, every time a fire engine was shown on TV Elizabeth asked again about Grandma and Grandma's house.
Even this evening as she talked on the phone to her Grammy, she told Grammy how much she loved her Grandma and how she was worried about Grandma. And just before her bath, she asked me if we would be able to drive to Grandma's in the morning.
I'm sure I'll never get it right, but I promise to keep trying to figure out what is that little girl thinking.
