the    sides

Since Amy didn’t get home till 9 last night, I had Cayden with me all day.

So the plan was - she comes to work with me and draws and helps Megan recycle name tags and the like, we grab lunch (Noodles) then go back to the office.

9 times out of 10 - she’s awesome. She’ll come in every now and then with a picture or a laugh and it’s refreshing.

Yesterday was not going to be one of those days. And it really wasn’t her fault. A few weeks ago they had a fire/tornado drill at the school. Cayden FREAKED out when the alarm went off. They called me on my cell phone, I calmed her down but she was doing the sniffling so hard you can’t talk thing. (Ever cried that hard?)

Since that day, she’ll talk about not wearing flip flops to school in case there is a fire or tornado. There has been a few days when she didn’t want to go to school because of the alarms.

So…we get back to the office and the wind is blowing pretty hard. We’re in a metal building so it sounds a lot worse than what it really is but trying telling that to a 5-year old who is terrified of tornadoes. At one point, she’s downstairs crying because she’s scared to go in the bathroom because of the wind.

We get over that, get her calmed down when outside my window I see the Parker Fire Department pull up. They are coming to reinspect our building. So far so good. No meltdown. Then it all breaks loose. The Fire Department has this thing about doorstops. They hate them for some reason. We’re not supposed to use them anywhere.

We’ll…honestly…that doesn’t happen. Ray (senior pastor) sees the Fire Inspector dude and bursts out of his office screaming - “Grab the doorstops! The Fire Department is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Now I think that’s funny. A little inside humor. As I’m going to grab a couple of doorstops, Cayden goes absolutely ballistic.

All she has heard is Ray yelling “The Fire Department is here!” so she thinks the building is on fire and the alarm is about to go off. She is outside her mind in fear. She is screaming, shaking, and crying. She is now clamped on me like a vice grip. I couldn’t peel her off me if I wanted to.

I’m now stuck in a hard place. It’s funny but it’s not. I’m trying to reason with her but she is so hysterical, she’s not believing anything I’m telling her. She sees the fireman come in the building and she reaches another level I didn’t know exist.

It’s not funny anymore.

I can feel her heart pounding like crazy in her chest, her body is shaking, tears are pouring out of her face. She is scared.

I pack up my stuff, head home and we cuddle on the couch the rest of the afternoon.

Didn’t get jack done that I needed to but then again…maybe I did.