Ellie: Do you have a Mom?
Me: I used to.
Ellie: Where is she?
Me: Well, she couldn’t be here anymore but I love her very much.
Ellie: You must really miss her.

I don’t know what hit me harder. The honesty of how much I truly miss my Mom every single day or how my sweet little peanut was able to make this amazing connection. It was precious.

We had our very good friends come stay with us this weekend from the Chicagoland area. The kind of friends that provide wonderful, nonstop belly laughs, that often lead to peed pants. We don’t get to see them nearly enough. The two husbands exchanged secret emails prior to the visit to arrange a post-Valentine dinner out at a nice restaurant. Just for us grown ups. AWESOME.

I’m not really adventurous in the oceanic eating experience, but I felt like being a big girl and trying something new. Scallops. And, I loved them. All two and a half of them before I had an allergic reaction and had to go to the ER. After several shots of benadryl, steroids, and epinephrine, I was free to go. Do I know how to kick things up a notch er what? Luckily for us, it was a Mardi Gras freakfest in the ER, so we had lots of quality people watching.

This morning, Ben thought it might be interesting to let Ellie in on our adventure. Here’s how it went down:

Ben: Ellie, you know while you were sleeping last night, we had to take Mommy to the hospital?
Ellie: Awwwwwww. Have you seen my other pillow?

Ben and Ellie are attending a Valentine’s Day dance together this evening. Ellie’s friend who lives across the street is also attending with her Dad. Ben seemed concerned about what I had planned during their absence. I assured him that the two stay-at-home moms would be planning their Thelma and Louise get-away to which Ben quickly (a little too quickly) replied, “Make sure to gas up.”

In the last several months, Ellie has opened herself up to watching things that don’t include “Finding Nemo” in the title. One of the new additions is “The Little Mermaid”. After several hundred viewings, I heard her singing in the bathtub like Ariel. She allowed me to capture her performance on camera.

The vibrato gets me every time.