Letting Go

Yesterday I took the girls to the doctor, without an appointment, with Gavin in tow, during nap time, by myself. Yeah. Not my brightest mommy moment, but wanted them seen.....pronto.

You know how it is when you start googling symptoms. In my defense, it was a big deal. Camille developed a staph infection from an ongoing battle with a "diaper rash." Not going to go into all the gory details, but she had a single hard bump under her skin where the elastic around the leg was with a few surrounding pimple like bumps. She would scream in pain when I touched it....my poor baby. She was also running a low grade fever.

I rushed her to the doctor. There I waited. And waited. And waited. For 2 hours.

It was zero fun. But I did learn a little something about myself. I am becoming stronger. I felt myself beginning to stress out. The twins refused to sit in their strollers. Gavin was unhappy with the snacks and coloring books I brought for him and was bratty very unpleasant. Maya was on some sort of "lack of sleep high" and running around like a little banshee. And poor little Camille was screaming the majority of the time. Top it off with judgmental onlookers and the outspoken annoyed receptionists. The situation was enough to rattle Buddha himself. At one point I felt myself getting emotional and feeling sucked into all the bad energy around me. But I noticed it and brought myself back to the present. I can't control everything....so I stopped trying. I just let it all go and took a breath.

I hugged my crying baby, singing her favorite song (You Are My Sunshine) and started to pace the halls encouraging Maya to sing along. Eventually, Gavin joined us and decided to lead our singing parade. We ignored the huffs of the grumpy old man trying to read his newspaper,the teenager trying sleep and his angry mother. I then jokingly asked the receptionist if she preferred my singing to the crying baby. After that things calmed down. Camille started to fall asleep in my arms and the other two children started coloring. Then surprise, my sister walked in! She just happened to be getting her stitches out that day! I have never been so happy to see her!

Slowly I am learning to give up my expectations of how I think things should be. And I am beginning to not care how others view me.  Not to mention my need to control every situation. Letting go of all that. It really does make life easier.