Changes

I used to be a pretty laid back driver. It seems that I inherited my mother's driving skills and I've always had a habit of accidently cutting people off, going through the stop sign in a 4 way stop before it's my turn, and generally pissing off other motorists. I used to do the "It's still yellow, so I'll run this red light" thing, before a City of Chicago Police Department camera caught me running one on Madison and Pulaski and sent me a $90 ticket with pictures of my car. (Those cameras really work!) I really don't do it to be a nasty driver or to be rude, I've just been kind of clueless. I was a nice bad driver though...again I got that from my mother. When people yelled at me, or flipped me off, or gave me dirty looks; I made the "Oops!" face and mouthed "I'M SORRY!" I never really understood why people got soo mad. I mean, nothing happened right? Why get so worked up over the possibility of having a car accident? We didn't actually have one, so relax! Enjoy the rest of your day!

THAT attitude has changed. It started when I was about 8 months pregnant and my doctor told me that I would have to cut down on my driving for work.

"If you get into a car accident, your belly will hit the wheel and hurt the baby."

"You mean there IS a baby in there? and it can get hurt?"

I surprised myself this week when I had to resist the temptation to put the car in park, walk up to the guy that was recklessly driving a semi and say,

"Don't you know what I have in that car? The most precious baby on earth. My reason for living. I carried her in my womb for 9 months while God put togather every cell in her body, breathed the air in her lungs and handed her off to me. Every breath she takes is a gift to me and every laugh she makes is a little ray of sunshine. You put her and every other little precious child on this road in jeapardy when you drive like that. Count your lucky stars that our vehicles did not make contact, because if they had, you would have experienced rage and fury unlike anything you could ever imagine."

It still surprises me how much I'm resembling a grown up more and more each day.

Best Movie Ever?

Since Stephanie is staying with us this week to help out with Aimee while I work, Brian and I decided to go on a date. Yay! After making sure that Aimee was asleep for the night, we headed over to our favorite theater, Nova 8. We knew traffic would be awful, since there is really no way to get there without trying to negotiate through mall traffic, but driving through 2 car accident scenes within 1 block of each other proved to be worth it, for $6.50, you get admission to the movie, a bag of popcorn, and a medium drink! We were so excited to see the Chronicles of Narnia that we didn't mind the 50 middle school aged youth group kids that laughed at inappropriate times and screamed their heads off when a dog started talking.

Was it the best movie ever? I can only give you a half-hearted yes. Not because the movie doesn't deserve a whole-hearted endorsement, but because we can only testify to the quality of the first half of the movie.

Yes. Aimee did it. She woke up and screamed her head off until she was coughing, choking, and almost drove her Aunt Stephie to desperation. After 2 full hours of screaming, and trying every remedy she could, she called us. Unable to offer any other solution, I decided that we would leave the movie and come home. Brian and I were totally engrossed and enchanted by this marvelous movie, but our commitment as parents pushed away any feelings of regret, frustration, or depression over not being able to finish watching what is probably the best movie of the year. That is, until we were 2 minutes away from the house and received another call. "I finally got her to go to sleep."

Should we go back? How much have we missed? We're too far gone. By the time we return, it will be too late.

Dejected and depressed, we returned home and ended our night as if we had never left. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow. At $6.50 a person, it's worth another try!