Still in Idaho and another story

Well thanks to you who made it to the end of my last post and was still kind enough to leave me a comment. It was awesome. I could almost hear you gagging through my computer. For the record, Tido is doing fine and I'm recovering okay too. My brain is slowly blocking out the ugly incident, day by day. That was so traumatic for me, you would have thought I had witnessed a train accident by how my brain responded to it. Over and over I kept replaying it in my mind. Nasty! I wonder if there is such a thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for pulling a string out of a dog's butt?

Well, I'm still in Idaho watching my sister's kid....and yes, I have another story. This one involves Lily.
So the other night Lily, Isaac and I were driving home from Kerrie's house, another one of my sisters. It was late at night and I was driving on this back country highway and it is not a lit road at all. There are street lights every 5-10 minutes or so, but that's about it. Anyway, I got on the highway, gave the kids some snacks, and contently drove in the quiet car while they ate. All of a sudden I heard this strange gurgle/throat sound come from Lily. It was such an odd sound that my mom antenna went up and I immediately glanced into the backseat to see if she was okay. It was so dark that I couldn't see her face, but she wasn't moving...at all. "Lily?" I said. Nothing. "Lily?" I said again, this time grabbing her foot shaking it a little. Still nothing and also a very limp foot. Now, let me say that I absolutely knew she had not fallen asleep on me. We had only been in the car for a few minutes and I knew she wasn't really tired, and to save a further explanation I'll just leave it at that- I knew she had not fallen asleep on me. Something was wrong. So I started shaking her foot more and more while calling her name louder and louder. Her leg was so limp. She gave me NO movement at all in her body or her head. I asked Isaac if Lily was awake, but he said he couldn't see her face. It was too dark. I'm driving Bonnie's husband's older junkie SUV and I'm struggling to find the interior light, but no luck. I'm truly panicking. I start yelling Lily's name and shaking her foot or hand or whatever I could reach. Shaking harder and hard and yelling louder and louder. Still nothing, completely limp. I'm freaking out. I know something is so wrong here. My mind starts working in overdrive as I frantically search for my cell phone, mentally go over the Heimlich Maneuver I learned mmm...about eight years ago, and try to figure out when I should yank the car off the side of the road, and also cursing the stupid, dumb dark highway because I just needed to see her face! Yes, all that was going through my mind in turbo speed. Right up ahead was a traffic light and a lit intersection. I sped up to get to it fast and tried to formulate a plan. Should I grab Lily first or try to flag down that oncoming car first, or try to find that stupid cell phone, and all the while I was mentally preparing myself to see a blue Lily who was deeply in trouble. I truly believed I would find a blue in the face Lily. I can't even tell you how scared I was. Well, I get to the light and whip my head around to look at Lily and what do I see? She's just staring at me like I'm a complete idiot. Seriously, if she could, she would have said exactly that. "Holly, you're an idiot". I could see it in her eyes.
I can't even tell you how worked up I was. It took the next ten minutes to slow my heart down and stop my hands from shaking. I even felt a little dizzy. I couldn't believe how fast that situation escalated in my mind. It was probably only the spam of a couple of minutes, but to me it was forever that she was not responding to me AT ALL. And did I mention that she just let her legs and hands whip around like rag dolls as I'm trying to get some sort of movement or response from this sweet little girl? Holy cow, so scary. Well, after I saw she was okay I said, "Lily, why didn't you say something?" She continued to stare at me like I was an idiot for another minute or so and then said, "I talk now", "Howwy, I talk now!".
Of course after something like this, I had to call and tell the story to Jon. He summed up the whole situation in one very sarcastic comment, "You overreact? No.... Not you!". So yes, I over reacted. I get it. But geez, at least I have a mom antenna, even if it is a little off.
However, since this happened, I've been chuckling as I'm trying to look at the situation from Lily's point of view. She's just chilling in the backseat when all of a sudden her crazy aunt Holly is shaking her limps like crazy and yelling her name over and over again. I so wish I could have read her little mind.

So anyway, here's to four more days of babysitting, housesitting, and dogsitting. For Lily and Isaac's sake, I'll try to create some good memories to override the weird ones that have happened. Also, my apologies to Bonnie and Luke if they happen to read this story before they get back. I hope it didn't freak you out. She's fine and I really am a good babysitter!