The Stranger In My House

While it sounds like a great title for a horror movie, and sometimes I feel like it is (and I am starring it!)--it's not.

This stranger sits across the breakfast table from me. She always seems to wear pink. She is around 4 feet tall, and is missing a tooth.

And, the tooth isn't the only thing that is missing. So, are her manners, her happy mood, and her respect.

I know it sounds like I am making a joke, but I was telling Garren the other day: "I don't even know this child any more."

And, I don't.

This isn't the little girl I gave birth to, and nurtured these past 6 years. Where did my baby go? And, I don't mean where did the time go--I mean literally, where did she go.

She must have crept out in the middle of the night sometime when I wasn't looking. She too was probably scared of this "back-talking, rude, fibbing, foot-stamping, some times down right hateful" stranger.

Back when I was pregnant with Thomas I shared my fears about the possibility of having a boy. And, apparently I was the only one who did--or at least the only one who said anything (which made me feel GREAT by the way!!). Comment after comment was about how boys were so much better than girls. I was told that if they had the girl first they never would have had more, and wait until she gets to be a teen and pre-teen. Then of course, were the moms with aged 8-10 year old girls who warned me about those phases too.

Of course I scoffed at them. I had a precious little girl who loved her mommy more than anything, and we were "bestest friends." No other mother surely had such a wonderful little princess.

And then one day I woke up and I stared at my child and wondered what had happened.

I tricked myself in to believing that it was Kindergarten. Then of course it was the jealousy over Thomas. I think I stopped trying to lie to myself after I blamed it on "the move." After all it has been almost a year since my "little girl" went missing. It couldn't have been all of those things.

Now, I just sit back and wonder how much longer until I get her back? Will I ever get her back? So many moms seem to joke how it all works out by the time they are away from home and in college or after. Do they really think that is funny? Because it might be the saddest, most depressing thing I have ever heard. And, I am still reeling from walking away from the closest "family" I have ever had now three weeks ago.

I want my baby back, and I will stop at nothing to rescue the sweet and wonderful child that this new stranger in our house ate for lunch!

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