IT IS WHAT IT IS

When we moved into our newly built home in 1977 we had installed gold shag carpet. Are you….laughing…at my shaggy gold carpet? That’s not nice. Being new, the carpet needed to be vacuumed—a lot for all the loose fibers. One day my neighbor Sharon brought over her two sons (she later had a third), so that my six-month-old son (my first born) could be exposed to other children.

We talked.

They played—sort of.

My son was sitting on the floor, reached down with his baby puffy hand, picked up a wad of gold fluff and stuffed it in his mouth. He swallowed.

I was young. I sort of lost my mind. I reached in his mouth to see if it was still there. In those moments, I wondered if he would need surgery or his stomach pumped. In that moment, I decided I couldn’t take care of a child, if I let him eat carpet then what was next? I concluded he should be removed from my home. I said with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart, “Oh no, he ate carpet.”

Sharon laughed and said, “Oh, he’ll eat a lot worse before it’s over.” And she said, “The carpet will…come back out—don’t worry.”

He did eat other things: dog biscuits, bugs, head and shoulders etc.

I would like to say that was my last mom meltdown, but it wasn’t.  

I have learned some things:

·         It doesn’t help if you blow your top or things out of proportion.

·         Life happens.

·         It is what it is.

·         Most importantly, I’ve learned, no one should ever put down gold shag carpet in their home. Not even if the world promises shag and the color gold are here to stay.

Making things more than they are is wrong on so many levels. It is what it is.

Happy Wednesday!

JW

PS Can you see the gold carpet in the photo?