Yesterday on Ellen, there was this woman who lost her 3 year old son like OUT OF THE BLUE. He was this adorable little boy with long firey red hair and a spirit to match. I found myself on her blog late last night (babyboybakery.com), and just got sucked into her world. It’s haunting to go through her instragram and see his gingery smile one day and then a message of utter heartbreak the next….and then my head went to that awful place it goes to when you hear about a tragedy like this….what if that happened to us??

I had a rough day yesterday with the kiddos. It started out normal, breakfast, bed snuggles, nap time, lunch, adventure, come home…yada yada. But for some reason I found myself in the afternoon with a HOT MESS of a meltdowny toddler and a baby who could not seem to settle into her late afternoon sleepage either…it was one of those moments where I looked around the house in all of it’s messy glory and thought…” I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!” Y’all ever get to that space? It’ll stop you in your tracks.

I pouted most of the evening…sorry hubs (until we went to our home fellowship group Christmas party and walked away with the two WORST WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS EVER…a rusty shovel with a hole in it and a terrible musical carriage thing….they are not allowed in the house). But last night as I was reading these beautiful stories of little Ryan I thought…”OMG WHAT IF TODAY WAS LUKE OR EMMAS LAST DAY AND I WASTED IT BEING A GRUMPY GRINCH”. That thought pretty much kept me from sleeping well last night…even though the tiny tot went 7.5 hours…PTL…did I get to enjoy it? No. WOMP. BOO. HISSSSSSS.

What if today was the last day (ugh…worst sentence I’ve ever written)? Would it be one you would look back with a twinkle in your eye at or would you regret it forever? Did you get enough snuggles and kisses? Would you feel awful for skipping a few pages in the book so you could get to nap time faster (guilty)? Did you marvel at the fact that your not yet two year old knows that 5 is more than 3 and 9 is more than 6 or would you be groveling at having to clean up the tiny puzzle pieces AGAIN before the dog chews them? Or celebrate that he randomly says new words like “rainbow” and “umbrella” or be mad that he still won’t say “I love you”? UGHHH, ALL THE WHAT IFSSSSS.

There is NO way in la la land that I will be able to create a perfectly harmonious and loving day every day…that is just something I can never achieve…unless I lived at DISNEYWORLD…which we don’t, but a little gut check like I received yesterday can only make me a better mom…I hope.

So sorry for your loss my fellow mama, my heart goes out to you and your missing red balloon.