My Anxiety - I made a HUGE step this weekend


Y'all should be damn proud of me.. damnit.
Our friend, Jessica, swung by the house (ha! not a house) to pick up myself and Bella to go to her Mexican Uncle's place.  (They're pretty much adopted family and everyone in the family seems to refer to them by the moniker.)  We stopped off at Walmart so I could get new shoes for Bella (we spent ten minutes searching her tiny-ass room for her other Tinkerbell shoe to no avail) and some socks that fit.  From there, we were driving for about 20 minutes to get to her family's place.
We get there and people are just showing up.  Some others had already shown up and things were going well.  Jessica's husband, Derek (Pat's best friend), was already there.  Both Jessica and Derek kept telling me that Bella is already considered family by proxy (did I use that right?) and that even if I can't see her, someone does and will keep an eye on her.  I was VERY leery about this, even though they're all technically family.
Bella had a great time running around the property, looking at all the Halloween decorations and playing with a puppy named Sweetie.  She even made a friend with a little boy dressed as Zorro; they took turns "scaring" each other.  Too cute.
As the evening wore on, a bouncy house was introduced.  Enter my anxiety music.  I was sitting by the fire staying warm (it gets damn cold her at night!) and Bella and Derek went over to the bouncy house to play.  He let her run loose into the bouncy house and returned to where I was near the fire (I'm terrible with measurements, but let's just say that it's the length of a trailer home from the bouncy house to where I was sitting).  I wanted her to have fun with the other kids.  It took ALL of my self control to NOT get up and hover, like a helicopter parent.
She ended up coming out on her own because it was too wet inside.  The tarping and whatnot was a little wet when they unfurled it to blow it up moments earlier.  She was inside for all of maybe five minutes before she wanted out.  We told her she could go back in if she wanted once it was dry.  She didn't go back in.  She was having too much fun visiting with everyone.
There was even a very elderly abuelita there, wrapped up in blankets and enjoying the laughing children.  They didn't speak a word of the other's language, but it was awesome to see the interaction.

Moral of the story?  Be damn proud that I'm slowly overcoming this damn anxiety.  On a scale of 1-10, for the whole five minutes she was completely out of my sight but among friendlies, I was feeling a 7.. maybe 8.

Comments

  1. JennyMonday, November 01, 2010 1:10:00 PM

    LOL! Yay momma! I do the same. I get anxious leaving Olivia with someone, even if I trust them to take care of her. She has to like the person too. So I definitely hear where you're coming from.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EzraiyaMonday, November 01, 2010 1:38:00 PM

    I have no problem with letting her stay with someone if I need them to watch her. It's when we're in the same area and she's not in my view that scares me.

    ReplyDelete

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