Stairway to heaven

Last Saturday I broke my new rule of not taking Emma Mae out in public until she turns three. My mom's side of the family was having a reunion and we decided to go for the day. Mike took the day off of work, we packed up the kids and drove to Concan, Tx on the Frio river.

It took us four hours to make a two and a half hour trip. First of all, my hubby and kids needed to stop at McDonalds to eat when we were a mere fifty miles from our destination where I knew there would be plenty of food to go around. You know a stop at McDonalds with little ones turns into an hour long ordeal of watching them climb and play on the playscapes and refuse to come down when it's time to go. And then I drove past a couple of crucial turns so we had a hard time finding the cabin my parents had rented for the weekend.

But we finally made it and took the kids down to the river which is really more of a pond these days due to the stage 2 drought central Texas is in. And it actually rained while we were there which was a huge blessing. I think most people around here are not so familiar with the rain these days. Mike had fun swinging from the rope swing into the river but the kids were having none of that. They did like seeing fish and tadpoles in the water though. That evening we had a big family dinner and it was nice to see people I hadn't seen since our last reunion.

Now, back to Emma Mae. The cabin we all met up in for dinner was a big two story number. The staircase looked like it had been made for people with a deathwish or perhaps a family of stuntmen. It was kind of steep and it had great big openings under each stair. Like the size opening that a two year old could fall through. So I forbade our two year old from going up those stairs. She wasn't having that either. She was starting to create a scene about those stairs so I told her she could go up once. She barely made it down alive. Someone actually had to help her get down. So I told her no more. She didn't listen. She made a break for those stairs the second I turned my back to her. I hustled after her and told her to come down. She said "NO!" I went up and got her and started carrying her down. You would have thought I was cutting off her leg she screamed so loud! She screamed all the way down the stairs, through the living room and to the bathroom. These relatives of mine had never met Emma Mae before but I'm willing to bet they won't forget her now! And I'm willing to bet that I won't forget my new rule anytime in the near future either.