Guest Blogging

I am so excited to have a guest blogger this week. Meet Peeling an Orange with a Screwdriver, also know as Girl with Flour in Her Hair. She is funny and cool and her daughter really did try to peel an orange with a screwdriver!

Performance Anxiety

I was asked to do a guest post on Mostly Flummoxed and excited, I immediately said yes.
Then I got writer’s block. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything to write. I went completely blank. I wrote a post for my blog, no problem, but the idea of posting something on someone else’s was a bit intimidating.
What if it’s terrible? What if no one likes it? What if it’s greeted with a chorus of boos and I can never show my face in the blogosphere again? The pressure! The stress!

After I got the kids to bed, I sat down at the computer last night to work on something, anything. Then my daughter started screaming and crying from her room. I reluctantly trudge up the stairs to see what the problem is. And we have a crisis on out hands.

We’ve lost “widow pidow” (which is “little pillow” in three year speak).

“Little Pillow” is my daughter’s “lovey”. We can’t sleep without it. It goes with us just about everywhere we go; car rides, grandparent’s house, school (tucked safely in the backpack). It’s filthy and frayed and I’ve had to take a needle and thread to it more than once. I washed it once and it exploded in the washer. I had stuffing all over the laundry room and shreds of fabric lying in a limp pile on the dryer. I frantically re-stuffed and re-stitched it before she could find us. Whew. One crisis averted.

But this time we aren’t so lucky.

Armed with a flashlight, I search the house, looking under sofas, beds and cushions. I look in the pantry, the toilets (after all, there is a baby in the house), drawers, the garage. I search the car, the dryer, the hamper, the dirty clothes basket. I dig through the trash can, the diaper bag, the cabinets, the freezer. I even look in places that it obviously cannot be, like under the rugs.

No pillow.

I let her out of her room hoping she can “sniff it out” and she follows me around like a lost puppy. “Widow pidow? Where are you?” she called. “Are you here? No. Are you here? No.”

Finally, I send her to bed in tears, without “widow pidow” and she cries herself to sleep. I continue to hunt, but to no avail. How can it just disappear? I find myself contemplating cutting up the curtains that match the pillow (it was all part of a set) and make her a new pillow before morning. I realize that this is why they say to buy two of a child’s “lovey” toys. But how do you know what’s going to be special to them? I mean, a pillow? Why a pillow? She had adorable stuffed animals and a zillion baby dolls, but it’s the pillow she can’t do without. With my oldest son it’s his “Cuddly Dino”. The baby has yet to attach himself to anything, with exception of my nipples. When I was little I had a blanket and my brother had a stuffed “baby monkey” that he left on the bus one day. I remember my mom having to drive the 20 miles back to the school to pick it up that night.

The things we do for our children.

But I digress…Blanket and “baby monkey” have retired from the “Lovey” business. “Cuddly Dino” is safe in bed and if I were to misplace my nipples, my baby wouldn’t be the only one distressed. The “widow pidow” is the issue here. When my husband came home he joined the search. I bet we spent two hours total, in search of that pillow. I finally find it stuffed behind the upstairs recliner. How it got there, I don’t know, but next time it will be the first place I look.

My husband snuck it into her arms last night without waking her and this morning, she stumbles into the bathroom with a big smile on her face and “widow pidow” clutched in her pudgy little arms.

I'm thinking I might cut up the curtains anyway. It might not be a bad idea to have an extra. It's worth that smile!


Thank you Peeling an Orange with a Screwdriver!