i'm so glad we got to eat dinner tonight.

today after banging heads with Brennan all day long, he almost got hit by a car. 

it was so close that as i was running out into the street i knew for 100% sure he was going to get hit. 

right up until the car and brennan both stopped at the very last possible second.

i am still shooken up over it, and it's been 5 hours. 

{i have nightmares about our kids getting hit by cars on that corner.}

i gave brennan quite the verbal lashing out of complete terror. 

i'm pretty sure that my arms were in fact waving like an orangutan at the zoo.

to the point that he was plugging his ears and screaming "stop! stop! stop!" 

over and over and over again. 

not my finest moment. 

and of course all of my neighbors on every side of my house were there 

for a front row seat to all of it. 

awesome:) 

and now 5 hours later i'm still sitting here wondering 

why i was yelling at my 5 yr old brennan,

and not the man in the red car who was going 40mph down our little street, 

with what appeared to be ZERO awareness

to the 6 kids playing on the sidewalks on both sides of him. 

i even waved and said thank you to him after i finished scolding Brennan, 

as if I was so grateful he had stopped. 

i was relieved that he had stopped.

and saved my son.

why didn't i yell at that man? 

why didn't i get in his face and give him a lecture about 

slowing down when children are around, 

and tell him to get out of his car and apologize for almost killing my small child, 

stop to explain himself 

or make some mention about how beside himself he was 

at what had almost just happened,

these all appear like normal reactions to such an event.

{i can't explain how close he came to almost hitting brennan.}

why didn't i ask him why he appeared to be completely oblivious to any of it until the very last minute when I was running AT his car with 4 adults screaming "STOP!!!!! STOP!!!! STOP!!!!!" at the tops of their lungs in complete horror 

of everything happening in front of us in slow motion? 

instead i wave and say "thanks"??? 

what the heck?

i guess we all panic in our own ways. 

and when i panic,

i put on a good calm front.

i don't like conflict.

but no, 

i have no problem hashing it out with my 5 yr old on his tricycle,

sobbing his eyes out.

the only thing i can think is that i don't care about that man, but do i care about Brennan. 

{and by don't care, i mean i haven't invested all of my energy 

in his being alive for the last 5.3 years of my life like i have with brennan.}

and when you care, sometimes you care with gusto. 

AND

that i was just so relieved that the red car man DID actually stop.

at the last minute.

when it counted.

he stopped.

and i got to eat dinner with my family around our kitchen table tonight.

carpet and all.

and how grateful i was to do it.

so for the twenty minutes after we walked inside i talked with Brennan 

about how sorry i was 

for taking it all out on him.

and inside i was feeling so badly that i have so much to learn as a parent, and that brennan is our guinea pig, and that clearly other mothers don't have these things happen to them, at least not the ones that have it all together-- 

and then i remembered my step-mom telling me that no one really has it together. that we are all just like ducks. appearing calm on the top of the lake with all of our little chicks following in a straight row behind us, 

but really we're just paddling like hell underneath. 

then the sane rational part of me starts to laugh thinking about of those ducks paddling so hard under water, 

and how i don't think i could ever get my three little chicks to go anywhere in a straight row, unless of course a giant ice cream sundae with whipped cream 

were at the end of a 1x1 foot hallway, 

and even then i'm not sure max would make it to the target.

and so i was just so glad tonight. 

that brennan was eating dinner with us.

in the most melodramatic way i could possibly muster.

and i am sure that i was just SO annoying about how 

he needs to look two times before crossing from now on,  

and that no you don't regenerate if you die outside of your game,

and really profound stuff like that. 

and what did he do?

plugged his ears,

and told me "i know, i know, i know," 

{insert long groaning sounds and eye rolling here for 15 of the 20 min. period we talked}, 

and then the teenage brennan was flashing before my eyes and i'm thinking,

that's it, we're losing him already!

and do they have military school for 5 year olds?

and sean was looking at me with his loving eyes and was all, 

"oh stop, he's fine. lesson learned."

with a calm and confident wink;)

but i still feel like i'm doing this parenting thing all wrong.

and not in a self loathing, pity party kind of way.

just in a

i have no idea what i'm doing, 

so i'll just make sure he knows i love him at the end of every day kind of way.

{and that he'd better be ______ sure to look two extra times 

before he crosses our street from now on.}

{in my mind, i used a swear word in that last sentence. and it sounded funnier that way.}

P.S.

chase walked to the kids over and over and over again today.

it was really exciting.

he was so proud of himself.

we were too:)

his feet are completely turned out in bowlegged form, 

and so when he walks, he really does more of a pregnant lady waddle.

it is the cutest walk you've EVER seen.

his pirate peg leg crawl is a close second.

but i think it's most funny when he walks on all fours like a small dog 

to spare his knees from crawling on the concrete.

or kitchen floor.

{maybe it's not so bad to have carpet everywhere in your entire house...}

at some point he's going to figure out that if he just stands up and walks,

he won't have to crawl on the hot concrete or hard kitchen floor,

and it's gonna be 

MAGIC:)

the end.