Today is Kelly’s 4th birthday, and I had a very different post planned.  Life is s very…unscripted.

After much thought, we decided the kids adventure program at the Wisp Resort might be a fun thing to do.  The skies were a sunny and breezy 78 degrees in the mountain, and we packed a lunch and headed up the mountain.  Our first plan was to take the luge-style roller coaster ride down the slopes.  The girls made the height requirement by over 10″, and after a long wait in line, we heard our instructions.  Pull back to break, push forward to speed up, and whatever you do, never, ever, ever hit the person in front of you.  This is a sporting structure, not an amusement park.  Kelly climbed and buckled into my lap, with me gripping the gears, enough so that the instructor told me to take a deep breath.  Up, up, up we climbed.  At the top, someone checked my seatbelt and yelled, “PUSH FORWARD!”  Push forward?!  Of course!  Safety first!  And down we flew, Kelly gripping my legs, me screaming for her to grip harder, pushing forward, quickly surmising that the brakes were broken and the only thing standing between us and certain death was our ability to stay on this tiny car.  I feared that by pulling back, we’d fly off the tracks. I tried to keep my tone calm so as not to scare her, but as we flew around the final curve and the men started screaming for me to stop, they couldn’t hear my screams that the brakes were broken.  The best they could do was scream for Greg to brace Sara in the car immediately in front of us as we slammed into them.  Luckily, there was nothing in front of Kelly’s face to hit her, and Greg the Ninja needed only the split second to secure Sara in his arms and how on earth he stayed steady and standing as I flew into him, I’ll never know.  He put Sara down and grabbed the screaming Kelly out of my arms as I was surrounded by resort workers screaming “PULL BACK!  WE GAVE YOU A BRAKE CHECK BEFORE YOU GOT ON!”  Oh My God.  Pull Back.  I had, in one word, panicked us straight into the accident.  It was entirely my fault.  I looked into they eyes of the instructor, tears rolling down my cheeks, one foot on the platform, one on my now broken seat, and said, “I’m so sorry.  I pushed forward…I, I…reversed it in my head.”  She stopped in her tracks, and backtracked immediately, realizing I was the scared Mom from a few moments prior, not some reckless thrill seeker.  “Of course! No one would purposely hurt their child.”  And off I sprinted.  I had hurt my child. On a birthday she had looked forward to for so long, we had to start a countdown sticker chart 60 days ago, just to get her to calm down.  This wasn’t happening.

Grabbing Kelly from Greg, I ran for the air conditioned shelter and checked her out from head to toe.  Other than a bruise on her chin and jaw, she didn’t appear otherwise injured.  Of course, there was the screaming.  On her birthday.  And the crying.  Mine, of course.  Staff kept piling in, checking on us, even offering us a free ride!  OH MY LORD NO!  Lots of pats on the back to Greg, the Ninja, whose fast and steady grip averted sheer disaster for Sara.  And the reality sank in: I could have seriously injured both of my children.  I had possibly ruined Kelly’s birthday.  I’ve scared the pants off of both of us.  Of course Greg is the Ninja; we need one with a doofus like me in the family.  Didn’t those people understand the mess I’d made?  And I didn’t just do it in front of my in-laws and a line of strangers.  Oh no sir.  I’m the blogger who tells the TRUTH.  Warts and all, I won’t sugarcoat a vacation that started with illness, began Day #1 with me slipping into the pool and injuring my ankle (again, ridiculously executed with many witnesses), proceeded into a sleepless string of days due to the piles of medicines keeping me upright, and now THIS?!  SERIOUSLY?!  ON HER BIRTHDAY?! Close you ears.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

Kelly just wanted to return to the house.  Sara, the sudden cheerleader, told her we should do just that and jump in the pool, and have a blast.  Scrapping an entire day of plans and leaving the Aunts and Uncles and Grandmommy behind to enjoy the resort, we headed back to the house (which is simply amazing).  Greg was full of “I love yous”, while I buried my head in the passenger seat, secretly wishing I could crawl out of my skin, bury my head under a pillow, and die.  I looked up at him and said, “I can’t be a parent anymore.  This is too hard.” He laughed his usual laugh, telling me that no one got hurt, and that when Mommy is OK, everyone is OK.  Only I could determine the outcome of the day.  I was so grateful we weren’t hurt that I didn’t have the energy to tell him to stop being so right all the time.

And here’s the funny thing about really hard days: on my hardest days, in my moment’s of greatest humility, God has, on occasion, whispered a message to my heart that has saved me.  I can’t quote it exactly, because it was more of an emotion at first, but I think he said, “You gave Kelly a life.  Now let her live it, dangers and all.”  The rest of my thoughts came as a flood.  I looked into the back seat at the girls happily playing with their balloon animals, giggling contentedly.  Of course!  Kelly is scared of EVERYTHING.  Always.  She is defined by her fears, no matter what we say.  Today Kelly was in a small accident, but the biggest of her life, and she didn’t die.  She was barely hurt. It’s only by surviving a fall that you learn not all falls are fatal. Having spent nearly every moment of her life in my arms, how would she possibly overcome any fears?  Her heart knows I won’t hold her forever.  She fears not fear…but what will happen when her feet touch the ground, figuratively speaking.  Today, my arms failed her, literally speaking.  Lucky us.

Every night, as I put the girls to bed, they beg me for a story.  Oh…the begging.  They want to hear a “Mommy Story”.  I dim the lights and with great emotion, retell my adventures in China, summers on the farm, being chased by a bull, cousins breaking bones while falling out of haylofts during our week-long games of “War”, being chased by the big dogs in the house behind ours, and how their mouths always dripped with saliva, seeing a steak instead of a child, being chased by poisonous Cottonmouth snakes across creek shallows, skipping school in France, lying about my age, and catching a bus to Monte Carlo, getting lost in Seoul, dancing in Prague, being attacked by eels in Mexico, only to realize the “eels” were the straps of my life jacket (doofus, doofus, DOOFUS).  They want real stories. They don’t want to hear about the perfect day that was perfect and filled with perfect details that blends together with all the other perfect days, Amen.  They want mess.  They want adventure.  They want to hear that the Doofus has lived, because after all, it’s a type of secret promise that they shall LIVE AS WELL.  Who wants to skip through life with zero near-misses? Who wants to get to the other side without a single scar?  A single…STORY?!

I don’t think God gives us tragedies.  I think he gives us troubles.  Otherwise, we’d be blown over by every little breeze.  What could be worse than raising my children…to grow up to be children?  I think I’m supposed to be raising adults, smart and secure enough to buy last minute tickets to a Broadway Show when they are in NYC for a business meeting, go alone, and know they they are the captains of their lives.  I want them to have the humility to laugh at themselves when they pull the black straps from the water, and realize, what?  Those aren’t EELS.  Wait, strike that.  I want them to be smart enough to know they were never eels in the first place. The hardest part of Motherhood is that a large part of me wants to rob them of their own stories in the name of “security”.  I want to keep them safe, under my watch.  Stories are for salty dogs like me, not for my precious daughters.  And that’s very, very wrong. Kelly is 4.  She is in a booster seat.  Life starts now.

As we floated in the pool, I whispered in her ear, “When you’re all grown up, and have girls of your own, and you put them to bed, you’ll have your own story to tell!  You can tell them about the time you raced down a mountain at break neck speed and then wrecked at the bottom!  You can tell them you were brave.”  Kelly replied, “I don’t want to be called  Kelly Belly anymore.  Or Cupcake. Or Kelle-Belle.  I’m not a baby anymore.”  And then the girl who would NEVER put her face underwater, at any price, held her nose, and stuck her face under the water.  She lifted up, completely “undrown-ded” to quote her.  And then she told me, “I’m Kelly the Brave.” Can I still call you Boo Boo Chicken?  “Yes, but only you Mommy, only you.”  Seems fair.  After all, I’m the one you so generously GAVE you your first real story.  Happy Birthday My Not Baby.  Now excuse me while I down a stiff drink and cry myself to sleep.  Immediately after dinner and cake and presents.  I should warn you a bit about a life filled with “stories” my Kelly the Brave…life keeps going, even when you’re trying to hit the brakes.