"That's Not Food!"

I was flying down the water slide in a double inner tube, holding tenuously on to Alex with my feet. "Hang on, Alex!" I yelled as we rushed into a pitch black tunnel, rocking and slipping forward, left, right.  Frankly, I was mildly terrified.  I couldn't see anything, we were going fast, I had very little faith in Alex not flopping out of his half of the inner tube, and water was getting in my eyes.  I hate water in my eyes.  Alas, we splashed down somewhat safely into the awaiting pool at the water slide's conclusion.  "Can we go again?"  Alex squealed instantly, before I had a chance to blink my contact lenses back into place.  Stupid water in the eyes.  How come grown-ups wear goggles to go scuba diving but not to play in some slide sprinklers and four feet of water?  The struggle is still real no matter what the depth. Alex and I (and Andy and I) hit the mildly terrifying water slides over a dozen times.  Andy, strapped snug into ...

Emily has grown distrustful of me, bursting into tears when I set her on the floor of the playroom and begin to tiptoe out the door backwards.   Just like Andy has FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) whenever he gets on that bus to go to school and Alex and I set off on whatever adventure I have planned for the day (Library!  Target!  A day of indoor yelling and spankings!), Emily has her own version of FOMO. Fear of Mommy OUT.  Surely, this is partly developmental separation anxiety, but this is also, I'm sure, partly because sometimes when I do leave the room... I truly don't show up again until the next morning.  Her fears are not unfounded baby fears. She is not an idiot.  Mommy regularly goes missing for entire days or evenings. Ah, the guilt-ridden life of the ever-so-blessed part-time working mother.  Actually, I lie- I'm barely guilt-ridden at all, except when I see a Dr. Sears post on my Facebook page suggesting that I'm doing irreversible psychologi...