Frightday!~

We were supposed to decorate our tree today. Hubby and I went to our storage unit earlier to get it and couldn't find it only to remember that we had donated it to charity last year. ::sigh:: It had been well used and had a bit of a hole in it, but we always turned that part toward the back. Neither of us are currently working, so no income. We decided we would go to the woods on our family's land to look for a tree.

I picked Carebear up from school and drove to my MIL's house and she and I got out to walk through the woods to see what we could find. At one point, there was a nice wide path through the woods, toward the back of our family property, which led to somebody else's land, and it was soooooo pretty back there. I've never noticed it before even though I have walked by that same path numerous times. I guess it is really only visible around this time of year.

My Carebear stayed on the regular path on our land, but I veered off and followed that wide path onto the other person's land. The spring that runs through our property also runs along this other person's property, and the woods were sooooo clean and not overgrown like the woods on our property. I didn't see any no trespassing signs, and it was so pretty with all of the fallen leaves and such a pretty hillside, I just couldn't help myself. I remember thinking how pretty it would be to have a house on that hill overlooking the pretty woods. We know the folks who own it, I don't think they would have objected to me walking that little ways back; however, when I came out of the woods at the same spot I had gone in just 10-15 minutes earlier, no Carebear. She wasn't where I had left her, so I started walking down by the catfish pond and through the yard of the A-frame, (the house where we used to live) calling her name. No answer. I walked by the garage and took a different path back into the same woods we had just come out of calling her name. Nothing. I walked all the way back to my mother-in-law's house where I had left the van expecting her to be sitting in the van. Again, no Carebear. I walked into my mother-in-law's house and asked her if she had seen my Carebear. She said no. At this time, I started to feel panicky and anxious and started imagining all sorts of things.

Was there someone else in the woods with us? Did they take her? Did she try to follow the path I took onto the other person's land and get lost? Did a wild animal get her (I know, I have quite the imagination, don't I?). I got back in the van and drove to the church yard beside the A-frame calling out to her. It had just crossed my mind I was going to have to go tell my husband I had lost our daughter in the woods while looking for a Christmas tree. I was feeling extremely panicky.

I decided to call her once more and this time I see the hint of her hot pink shirt with stars coming down the path beside the catfish pond behind our old house. She looked visibly upset. I walked down to her and asked her if she was okay. She was almost in a full-blown anxiety attack. She asked me why I left her and told me how scared she was being left back there by herself. Nevermind the fact she has walked that trail many times by herself. I had thought she would stand and wait on me where I had left her, but she didn't. Her main concern was snakes. I told her snakes hibernate during the winter (they do, don't they?).

Be careful what you tell your children when they are little, okay? When we moved into that house, my Carebear was 3 years old. I worried so much about her going to the pond behind our house all by herself and drowning, so I told her there were great big snakes back there and she was to never go to the pond by herself. I guess that fear carried over from her childhood.

The most important thing is my baby girl is safe and sound with me at home right now (THANK YOU, JESUS!), but I do hate that I have made her afraid of the woods because of something I told her when she was a small child. If I knew then what I know now, I definitely would have done a few things differently...