Freak OUT

Well I have a story or two...
As a mom I realize I totally freak out and panic over things I never thought I would.
For example, since Carter was a newborn, I've had major anxiety about him sleeping soundly through the night. SIDS has terrified me, and even more so since a friend of mine had her child die in her sleep during an afternoon nap, when she was Carter's age now. This is my absolute biggest FEAR.
Carter rarely slept in our bed with us and if he ever did, I would wake up and panic that he was suffocating, not breathing, and I'd yell at Aaron and just go crazy, scared to death. Carter's always been just fine, but for some reason in my subconscious brain, I'll reach out for him while he's sleeping and the connection that he is still, and warm, and kinda "swollen," means that he is lifeless. MORBID huh! I ended up shaking Carter awake, in panic, way too many times, the poor baby.
The other night Carter was asleep in his pack 'n play in the other room just like every other night and in my sleep I reached over and felt Aaron's face, thinking it was Carter and I bolted up, panicking because it felt swollen and lifeless (like you do when you're asleep) but I just have these nightmares that it's Carter and he can't breathe!! Is this normal?!!! Poor poor Aaron got woken up to me hitting his face in the middle of the night, saying "oh my gosh, he's not breathing!" He wasn't all that surprised, this has happened many times in the past 20 months.

Story #2
This happy fellow is the cause of yet another panic attack on my part. At the waterpark yesterday.

This waterpark in Chesterfield, MO is really cool, with splash pads, water slides, lazy river, the works. There's this big playground for little kids in the water, and Carter's been gathering up his courage to wander up even though there's water splashing down on him everywhere.
There's a big-kid slide at the top that Carter has been inching towards but still looks scared, so I just stand up top with him while he plays around.
K so there's this little kid who's probably 6 or something who's going down the big slide and says, "I'll take him down the slide with me!" (Mind you- adults are too big to go down the slide apparently, the Nazi lifeguard blows her whistle at you if you try.) I'm not gonna let some random kid take my kid down this slide because it's rushing water, and then another splash of water when you get out of it, so he'd have to really keep Carter's head above it.. and I just don't trust him.
But the kid comes up and down the slide several times, and keeps asking to hold Carter, and Carter looks like he wants to so I relent. I give the kid specific instructions, make sure he's sitting on your lap, keep his head above water, blah blah blah. Kid says, OK! And goes to sit down in the slide. I bend down to hand him Carter, and the kid all of a sudden starts sliding down!!! And he's holding onto Carter's LEG while Carter is on his belly, face down in the water!! (alright I'm being slightly dramatic about this, the water wasn't very deep even at the end of the slide but I still panicked).
So I wonder if anyone saw my next move... it was a good one, and probably quite hilarious. I drop to my knees, sliding onto my stomach, reaching for Carter through the dark, watery abyss of the waterslide, grab his arm just barely before he fell in forever, and pulled the drenched little guy back out of the top of the slide! (insert victory music here).
Never mind that this was totally unnecessary, Carter would have been fine going down the slide even by himself, but I had a panicky mom moment, and freaked out. But alas...

Here are my battle wounds.

What's that you say? Mom Award of the week? Psshht that's silly, no need.  Buuuuut I accept ;)

On a sweeter note, we went to a cupcake shop today!! Jilly's Cupcakes as featured on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Tasty..

Me and Carter with our cupcake. He's kinda pissed cuz I wouldn't let him have any til he ate some of his sandwich.. which he didn't. 

 Us girlies.. Malia, Paityn, and me. I loving having fun girls out here