Dirty Dishes, Missing Toddlers, and Police Officers With Great Ears

Yesterday started out well enough for the worst day of my life. I went to a new Zumba class and was the only person who showed up, so I got to attend a private class while Penny stayed in the childcare room at the YMCA.

Then I brought Penny home and she watched a movie, ate a snack, and ditched her warm winter clothes in favor of a princess dress from the dress-up bin. I didn’t know how much I would curse the decision to let her do that. 

She asked me to paint her toenails and I said no because I had to wash the dishes. She stood next to me for a while, then she walked away while I finished loading the dishwasher. 

And she did not come back. 

I walked around the house, calling for her. 

I checked all the usual spots. Then I started checking all of the unusual spots. 

She was gone. 

She was standing right next to me less than five minutes ago, how could she just disappear?

I started yelling that if she was playing Hide N Seek the game was over and it was time to come out. I checked every closet. I looked under every bed. I checked every shelf in our pantry. I checked the bathtubs and the kitchen cabinets. I checked the oven and the washer and the dryer. I even opened the dishwasher to make sure I hadn’t shut her in there by accident. I checked the toy boxes and the window seat.

There were two men from our church doing some construction work in our basement. I called them upstairs to help me look.

They couldn’t find her either.

We started looking outside. We looked in the cars and under the cars and in the pool. We checked the basement and the attic and the garage.

I called Eddie and told him to come home from work. 

God, wherever she is, be there with her. 

I called my uncle who is the retired chief of the Maryland State police. 

She was not in any of the places that he told me to look. My aunt suggested I yell that I was sick and I needed her to come out and help me right away. That didn’t work either. They told me if I couldn’t find her within the next few minutes, I should call the police. 

My baby was gone. 

Saint Anthony, I need you to help me find my daughter. 

Now it had been twenty minutes. 

And it was only 14 degrees outside. 

And then the What Ifs started coming. I started to imagine all the things my uncle must have not wanted to tell me. 

What if she swallowed something dangerous? Is that why she won’t answer me?  

What if I didn’t hear the alarm on our door? What if she did get outside? In that snow. With the negative windchill. In her princess dress and no shoes.

What if an intruder came in while we were at the Y? And now he has my baby girl? What if he is still here? Or worse, what if he isn’t? What if he took her out a window while I was standing right in my own kitchen and that’s why I didn’t hear the door alarm beep?

I knew I had to call 911. Because what if? 

Another 20 minutes had gone by. Eddie was home. There were now three men searching with me. 

No one could find her. The men started taking furniture apart, in case she had gotten herself stuck inside of something.  

I answered the operator’s questions about what she was wearing and what color her hair was. Is. 

I had to go through the events of our day. I started bawling all over again when I realized she hadn’t even eaten lunch yet. 

Because now it was 1:00 in the afternoon and the police were here. 

And four officers were looking with us and they hadn’t found her either. 

And wherever my daughter was, she was hungry. 

And now we had to call the Y to confirm my whereabouts for the morning and make sure I hadn’t just left her there in the childcare room by accident. (Even though of course I knew I hadn’t.) 

And how do you lose a child when you are just standing there washing the dishes? 

I wondered around aimlessly, checking places I knew she wasn’t going to be, because I had already checked them, but what else could I do? 

And then I heard my name. 

“Steph! I hear her crying.” 

And I ran to a uniformed officer who was holding my terrified daughter.

He found her in the closet of our master bedroom. She had pulled a tote bag upside-down on top of herself and had fallen asleep like that, behind several boxes of out-of-season clothes. With the vinyl tote bag over her head, surrounded by plastic pins full of clothes, she had not been getting much air. 

No less than five adults had checked that closet thoroughly. Officer Justin was the second policeman to check it, and he didn’t see her either. He heard her breathing. 

When he found her, she was tired and scared (of the police swarming down on her hiding spot) and red. And completely lethargic. She acted exhausted like she had just run a marathon. The pupils of her eyes were tiny little pinpoints.

No one but me seemed to think this was as big of a deal, but I really don’t think that I’m exaggerating when I say that I think he saved her from suffocating under that vinyl bag. She had been like that for over an hour by that point. 

Everyone else was just relieved she was found.

She cuddled and cried and stayed on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon. 

She asked for Goldfish crackers. 

All of the men went right back to work. 

I don’t know what else I expected anyone to do.

Apparently everyone still trusted me alone with my daughter.

Even though sometimes I have to call in four police officers to hep us finish a game of Hide and Seek.  

 And now a piece of my heart will forever be missing for all of the stories that didn’t get to have a happy ending.  

If, God forbid, you ever do find yourself in a similar situation, the police officers told me that in the majority of the calls like this they receive they find the child inside the home, or sometimes on the property. All it takes is a minute for a child to get away from you, even in your own house! I was in shock and just I could not think straight. I kept opening up the same closet doors over and over again, knowing I would not find her there. Once I had my uncle on the phone, he had me check the most dangerous places in our house (our pool, our bathrooms, our cars, our garage, our basement, our dryer, our attic rafters, etc) right away. We also learned that listening can be even more important than looking.  

A blanket of freshly fallen snow covered the ground outside of our Pennsylvania home and, while it was beautiful, put a bit of a damper on our weekday morning. School was still on time and I was rushing to get the big kids ready for school and get everyone breakfast, and worrying about my husband heading out on those icy roads in an hour or so.

As he bundled himself to go shovel the driveway, Eddie mumbled to no one in particular, “Man, sometimes it sucks to be the guy.”

Later I asked him what he meant.

“Nothing. It’s just a lot of responsibility sometimes. I want to help you with all of your stuff because I don’t want to be a total douche, but, and this is not your fault at all because you are busy taking care of the kids and- am I allowed to say this?- some of the stuff I take care of around here you just aren’t physically strong enough to do. So you have me as a teammate and I just kind of fly solo on some stuff. It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it. Forget I said anything. I actually like taking care of you guys.”

Everything he said was true. My feelings weren’t hurt, not that he had said anything hurtful. I had just never considered it that way. It must be a difficult balance for the men of our generation. There is definitely a double standard there that I just never noticed until he brought it up. I’ve seen it in practice. We call ourselves feminists. We speak about our ideals of equality and empowerment, yet we constantly expect our men to save us, and if they don’t the word my husband chose is exactly the word we use for them.

One of my blogging friends recently told a story on her Facebook page that illustrates this perfectly:

Admittedly, I had the exact same thought as the woman who left the comment. Then I asked myself: If her husband would have been the one stranded with two flat tires, would she have been expected to come help him change them? All I am saying is that I am starting to think that we have a double standard for our men. I almost didn’t post this because I didn’t want it to come off like I was defending men too much. However, I never would have been afraid to defend women too much, so therein lies my first point: this double standard? It does exist. My second point, which I’ll get to later, is that I’m not entirely sure that it is a bad thing.  

There is not a single task in our house that is considered “woman’s work.” My husband helps with the dishes and the laundry and the diaper changes, as we both believe he should. As children of the 80’s, we lead the way for Generation Y. We are Millennials, whether we want to be lumped in with them or not. If we hear about a man who refuses to change his own child’s diapers, it is off-putting to us. Although our marriage is traditional in the sense that he works outside the home and I am a full-time mom, that decision was made out of the financial reality that he has the ability to make twice as money as an engineer than I did as a teacher. We don’t necessarily have a lot of the traditional gender roles that our parents’ generation tends to follow. I know how to use the power tools in our garage. I can and do use the lawn mower. I’ve built furniture from scratch by myself in addition to birthing babies. I’d call myself pretty well-empowered.

I can’t think of any traditionally “female” task that I can say that my husband has never done. I can’t say that he has never cleaned the toilet or changed a diaper. He’s expected to do those things, and he’s okay with that. And I’m okay with expecting that of him, because he is a full-grown adult who should be able to function like one. But I honestly can’t say that I have ever changed our air filter, hung our Christmas lights, or shoveled our driveway by myself. And Lord knows I have never, ever been the one to dispose of the dead mice or birds that pop up on occasion (we live next to a farm). I am physically capable of doing all of those things, but no one has ever expected me to, so I just haven’t. What’s up with that? I honestly don’t know. 

Men are expected to do things, while women are offered the choice. Do I want to be empowered in this situation, or do I want to be the damsel in distress? I get to choose. As long as he is there to lean on, I usually have the option of “I’d rather not.” He almost never gets that option. Because, while I’m sure he’d also rather not deal with the dead animals, one of us has to, and he genuinely wants to step up and “be the man.”

 If I’m being completely honest, I have to say, sometimes playing the role of the damsel is okay with me. After all, when a snake got into the house, I was the one who locked myself into the bedroom and cried until Eddie took care of it. It might not have been my finest moment. Maybe theoretically I should have been able to handle it myself, but the reality is that I am just pretty darn terrified of snakes– which I didn’t even know until there was one crawling across our living room. I cried. He killed it. To be perfectly honest, I was happy when he did.

When the house alarm went off at 2 am and the police were at the door, I was subconsciously relieved that no one expected me to be the one to answer it. (Don’t worry, there were just some teenagers taking CDs and loose change from unlocked cars in our neighborhood.)

When there is three feet of snow on the ground and one of us is going to have to shovel our 300-foot driveway, no one expects it to be me because he is almost a foot taller than I am with 50 pounds more muscle, and one of us has to stay in to watch the kids anyway. Sure I could do it, but it would take me twice as long as it takes him. Of course I have helped, but it has never been expected of me to help with those kinds of  physically demanding tasks in the same way that it is expected (not only be me, but by society in general) that he helps with chores inside the house.

I realize that the only reason I have the choice is because I have my partner here with me. If anything ever happened to Eddie and I became a single mom, I wouldn’t have the choice any more. There are single parents doing all of the everything every day. I know that. You guys amaze me. I know that circumstances like death, and divorce, and deployment leave people without their helpmates and that it is hard.

I know that if he was not here I would have had to figure out a way to deal with the snake myself, so I would have done it because I would not have had a choice. And that is what I am saying.

When I really reflect on it, I find it odd that I surrender my feminist card so willingly in exchange for rescue from reptiles or if furniture needs to be moved from one place to another. But the brutal truth is that he is physically stronger than I am (in both his biceps and his stomach) and, while he may not enjoy the tasks themselves, he likes being able to care for me in that way– and I like being taken care of. I get that because it is the same way in which I am emotionally stronger and can help walk him through tricky situations with the kids or a friend.

It’s hard to find a balance while we try to reconcile wanting to erase gender roles because society seems to constantly be telling us we are supposed to, with actually enjoying being taken care of and finding satisfaction in taking care of someone.

I sent this post to my friend Allison to get her thoughts and she jokingly replied, “#HaveOvariesWillBeSelectivelyFeminist.” Touche. 

I believe that a woman can be anything she wants to be, whether that is a doctor, a lawyer, a homemaker, a plumber, a mom, an artist, or an accountant. That is what makes me a card-carrying feminist. But I also believe that there is nothing wrong with keeping the femininity in our gender or the chivalry the other.

If that makes my feminism watered down, I’m not sure that I really care.

My husband is turning 30 today. 

This means two things: 

1. Now he can stop calling me Mrs. Robinson because we are the same age again. (I’m exactly two months older than he is, to the day.)

2. We have now been together for literally half of our lives. We started dating when we were 15. And now we’re “old” and married and have three kids. 

You might think it is impossible for a 15-year-old girl to know with certainty that her high school sweetheart is the man she will marry, but I swear that I did. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I knew he was “the one” for approximately 80 million reasons, but since today is his 30th birthday, I’ll start with just that many. In no particular order: 

1. Integrity: Since we were teenagers, Eddie has always done exactly what he said he would do, when he said he would do it. If he told me he would call me at 6:30 and something came up, he would find a way to get to a phone anyway (this was back before everyone had cell phones) and call to say he wasn’t going to be able to talk right now after all, but that he would call later. And then he did. 

2. Honesty. Even if it is something I’d rather not hear, I would still rather hear it from him. I can’t remember a time he has ever lied to me. (Other than this little white lie, which in retrospect, I guess is sort of funny.)

3. Ambition. At age 15 he knew he wanted to be an engineer and I knew that one day he would achieve that goal. And he did. 

4. Work Ethic. I have never, ever met a man with a stronger work ethic than my husband. One summer when we were in college he worked four jobs at the same time. He would mow lawns, do construction work, read meters for the gas company, and referee volleyball games. In high school he had an after school job with the custodial staff mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms. No job has ever been beneath him. I’ve always known that he would do whatever he had to do to provide for the family we built together. 

5. He believes in me.  I am a woman with big ideas. It is not unusual for me to come to him with an idea like, “Let’s move to Florida.” “Let’s adopt a kid.” “I think I want to start a community toy library.” “I think I want to start a national blog conference.” The list of my big ideas is pretty long. But he always helps me take the best ones and puts in the work behind the scenes to help me make them realities.

6. Patience.  I know Eddie doesn’t consider himself a patient man, but he has put up with the likes of me for 15 years. And, believe me, he knows how to delay gratification. Whether it was as a teenage boy not pushing me to do anything physical, or now as a grown man who is still waiting for the pick up truck he’s wanted for over a decade, but won’t buy until we can pay for it in cash, he has more patience than he believes.  

7. Self-Control.  When we were 15 we came up with a list of things that we would never say to each other in a fight. And there have been plenty of fights, but to this day we still haven’t said them. 

8. Physical Strength. This probably isn’t very P.C. of me to say, not that I’ve ever really cared much about that. I have watched my husband grow from a boy into a man who is large and strong enough to make me feel protected. I know that, if he had to, he would fight hard to protect this family. 

9. Organization. I am, for the most part, the scattered and creative type. He is the one who organizes files, creates spreadsheets, and keeps tracks of appointments around here. 

10. Loyalty. I have never been the jealous kind, but this might only be because I’ve never had to be. My husband is loyal. Not only to me, but to his friends and his family and his job. 

11. He plays the guitar. I mean, come on. Watching your man’s wedding ring move up and down a fretboard is pretty hot. 

12. And he’s pretty darn good at sports. You should have seen the kid spike a volleyball when we were in college. It was actually a tiny bit scary. It’s also extremely hot to see exactly how much power your man is capable of, and see the contrast to how gentle he always is with you. 

13. He’s a natural leader. Whether as the captain of a high school sports team, the president of his college fraternity, or now as an adult managing projects and people- or this family- he’s a strong and fair leader. 

14. Faith. Our faith has always been an important part of our lives, since we were teenagers in Catholic school, traveling to youth conferences and doing Campus Ministry projects. It is stronger now and it has been an amazing thing to watch Eddie grow in his. 

15. He will do the unpleasant stuff with me. Even when I was breastfeeding, Eddie woke up for every single night feeding. Every. Single. One. He would get up, bring me the baby, then go back to sleep until she was done eating. Then he would wake back up and take her to the crib. It didn’t matter to him that he had to get up and go to work and I didn’t. He knew I needed that emotional support. When Penny went through a phase where she wouldn’t sleep in her crib and I slept with her on the couch so that I could nurse her throughout the night, he slept in the living room with us, and we would take turns holding her all night. Because he knows sometimes all I need is for him to just be there. 

16. He notices things. If you got a new haircut or if you look sad today, I might not notice. But he will. And chances are he’s the one who reminded me to call you for your birthday or to congratulate you about your new job. 

17. He puts up with my idiosyncrasies. I’m slightly neurotic. (Who isn’t?) So, this man will patiently sit up in the middle of the night and let me slide over his side of the bed instead of getting up on my own side to walk around the room to get to the bathroom, just because I hate walking past mirrors in the dark. Mirrors are creepy at night, ok? Why don’t we just switch sides, you ask? Because I need him to be the one who sleeps closest to the door, obviously. 

18. He eases my fears. In case you couldn’t tell from that last item on my list, I have a lot of anxiety. Like, a lot. He is the one who can read my eyes and stop a panic attack before it starts. He will take my hand and whisper, “It’s just the landing gear,” when he sees me get that look in response to a clicking noise on an airplane.   

19. He can and will do it himself.  Sometimes this can irritate me slightly (like when it took three years to finish the kitchen in our last house), but Eddie won’t pay anyone to do anything he can do himself. He cut our lawn with a push mower when we lived in Florida and it was 100 degrees every day and the grass needed to be cut twice a week. We were both working and could have afforded the lawn service that everyone else on our block was using, but he wouldn’t go for that on principle. Because he believes that if you are physically capable of doing something yourself, then you should. And he does. I often say that as long as I have him, I’ll be ok in the zombie apocalypse. Fix a motor, catch and clean a fish, build furniture, code me a new website from scratch…whatever. It’s all in a day’s work. 

20. He’s encouraging.  It is not unusual for me to call him at work and say something along the lines of, “Hey, you know that miter saw in the garage? How do I change the angle? Is it this black knob thing on the side?” He’ll usually patiently ask if I can please wait until he gets home so that he can show me. And I’ll usually say no and try to figure it out myself anyway. But he rarely gets upset with me for using “his” tools or “his” computer stuff (unless I break something after he asked me not to touch it- which happens more often than I’d care to admit). He will teach me the difference between the drill and the impact driver and show me how to write code for something specific I want to do on the website. And then he’ll show me again a week later because I totally was not paying attention the first time. He does the same thing for the kids, teaching them new skills all the time. 

21. He’s always been good at sharing. This was one of the hardest parts about navigating a new marriage for me. And it was hard again when I stopped working and was no longer contributing financially. But it has never seemed hard for him. To Eddie, it has always been our money, our stuff, our lives. Even something as personal as his sock drawer, he will always be willing to share with me. Remember that story?  

22. He’s a great dad. He just is. If I’m not feeling well on a Sunday morning, he will still get all three of the kids to church on time by himself. He will change his work schedule to show up for doctor’s appointments or Christmas concerts or the first day of school. He will ride roller coasters together with the kids or not force them on the daughter who doesn’t want to ride. He’ll wear the Olaf hat in public. 

23. He can talk to anyone. I am not skilled at the art of conversation. If I don’t know you and you try to talk to me, it’s going to be awkward. But Eddie can talk to anyone about anything for hours at a time. He puts people at ease and helps them open up- which is the same thing he’s been doing for me for 15 years. 

24. His enthusiasm is catching. I would have never started watching The Walking Dead or listening to certain bands or even writing this blog without his love of music, zombies, and all things related to the internet.

25. This blog was his idea. Eddie started a small blog for our family back in 2007. He knew how much I liked to write and encouraged me to create a blog of my own- to carve out my own space on the internet. I honestly didn’t think anyone would care enough to read it, but he kept telling me words were my gift and it is selfish and wasteful to receive a gift and not use it. 

26. He’s, like, really smart. He was the youngest kid in our high school taking college calculus classes and he beat my score on the SATs by a good 100 points. (And I’m no dummy, I did manage to score myself a full academic scholarship to college.) He’d probably score higher than I would on an IQ test, but he’s smart enough not to take one whenever I suggest we try it. However, you would never know any of that stuff if you met him on the street, because he won’t ever make you feel like he’s talking down to you. 

27. I honestly can’t think of many vices. I have friends who worry about their husbands drinking too much, looking at pornography, or going out to “gentlemen’s clubs.” I’m very happy not to be able to relate to those conversations. I’m being 100% truthful when I say that, after 15 years together, the worst thing I can say about my husband is that he tends to over-commit himself to too many sports teams at a time. And once or twice a year he might smoke a cigar. I can’t remember one night in our marriage when I didn’t know where he was or what time he was coming home. He’s the one who insists we keep our tv and our computers in common areas. It took me 14 years to convince him to let me have a tv in our bedroom, and it still isn’t hooked up to the cable. While he might have a few drinks at a party occasionally, he has never, ever gotten drunk enough in my presence to need me to take care of him.

28. He still surprises me. He did make my 30th birthday weekend pretty stinkin’ incredible this year, but the little things are more important. It could be a candy bar on my pillow or boycotting the NFL and refusing to watch any football games at all this year- which is a HUGE sacrifice for him-because he was so disappointed by how his team (the Baltimore Ravens) handled the situation with Ray Rice, he still does things all the time that surprise me and make me happy that he is mine.   

29. We share the same ridiculous sense of humor. I can’t even count how many times we will start laughing hysterically about something that no one else in the world would think was funny. When people ask why we are laughing and we try to explain, they usually just say, “oh” and look confused. I wish I could think of specific examples, but it doesn’t really matter anyway, because you wouldn’t think they were funny. Almost every day one of us reminds the other that it’s a good thing we found each other, because no one else would understand. It might just be the way someone said something that triggered the same ridiculous, inappropriate joke in both of us. We often have to avoid eye contact with each other in church. It’s not at all unusual for one of us to look straight ahead and whisper, “Don’t you look at me right now,” because we know we will both burst out laughing if we do make eye contact with the spouse sitting next to us. This guy is pretty hilarious. And he’s fun. 

30. He forgives easily. I wish I shared this trait, but I definitely don’t. I will hold a grudge for years. Eddie is the opposite. As far as he is concerned, once you apologize, it is over and there is no need to ever bring it up again. If you asked him what the last thing he got angry at me about was, I doubt he could tell you. In our relationship, I have often been the one to make the biggest mistakes. With feelings, with money, with whatever. He has an amazing capacity to love people through their mistakes and just move forward. 

For which I am thankful, because I plan to be moving forward with this guy for the rest of my life.  

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Photo Credit: @andresr via Deposit Photo

I know you are curious about how our trip went, right? 

First of all, let me just say that Glenn Beck and his whole staff were lovely, kind, and generous, and I’m pretty sure none of them have Ebola. 

They are also located in Dallas, which I did not know before this whole ordeal, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about flying there in the middle of the whole Ebola thing. However, after being assured by a reader who lives in that area that I would be fine as long as I didn’t lick anyone, I was feeling much better about the idea. 

Do not lick Glenn Beck. Noted. 

So Monday Meredith and I boarded a plane and we flew off to Dallas to be part of a panel of women from across North America who were going to be live on the show to discuss the sexualization of clothing for young girls, which you already know is a topic that is very important to me. (If you are new here, this is why.) 

We had no idea what to expect, so we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted at the airport by our own driver. 

We felt super fancy. Meredith made me pose for this picture. 

We didn’t get in until late Monday evening, so we just ordered room service for dinner, watched tv, and went to sleep in our own beds in our own rooms- which is pretty much Heaven on Earth when you are a mom with young kids.  

The next day we did not have to be on the set until the afternoon, so we just hung out in the hotel, ordered more food, and obsessed a little too much about what we were going to wear.

A very sweet lady from Meredith’s prayer group had emailed several Bible verses with personalized messages for us, so we read them out loud and prayed together in my hotel room.

Then it was time to leave for the studio. We met Dr. Janni Aragon and Pam Rocker in the car that took us to the studio. 

Once we got there, they showed us to our own dressing room, which we were totally not expecting. 

 I don’t know what we were expecting, but it was not this: 

Here is Meredith partaking in the fancy pants sparkling water. (Yes, she is wearing a different dress than she wore on the show. We both decided to change at the last minute.)

We were also feeling very spoiled by the fact that we had our own bathroom in our dressing room. 

Do you know why you need to bring your best friend with you for tv interviews whenever possible? Because somebody has to be there to hold the microphone cord when you decide you have to pee after you are already mic’ed up. (After you double check with the sound guy that no one is listening to that channel and text a friend who is a producer to triple check and make sure it is really ok.) 

We got dolled up by the make up team.

I totally geeked out and was too shy to talk to Abigail Jones from Newsweek while she was siting next to me in makeup. But she turned out to be a very kind soul and she actually came to our dressing room  to introduce herself and talk to us for a while. 

Obviously, all of that was a lot of fun and a very cool experience, but the truth of the matter is that we were there to do important work and raise awareness. 

So, at 4pm Central Time, we walked onto the set and met Glenn Beck and the crew told us where we would each be sitting. After only about a 5 minute introduction, we just dove right in and all of a sudden we were on live tv having a very important discussion in front of a live audience full of moms. 

I want to sincerely thank Glenn Beck and his entire crew. They worked very hard for weeks to put this panel together and I feel like this was a very important show. My favorite part of the whole day was when Glenn’s daughter came up to us afterwards and shook our hands and told us how much it meant to her that we were there. I was honored to be part of this special experience. 

If you were not able to catch the live version of the show, The Blaze has put a few clips up on their YouTube Channel. You can watch them here, and make sure that you are following along on the Binkies and Briefcases Facebook page because I am not done with this topic, and I am excited to share an even bigger project with you very soon!