Phones, fears, and friends

Hey look what I just got!

It's just an iPhone 4, not a 4S because #1 Verizon doesn't have any 4S's in stock and I needed a replacement phone right away, #2 I was considering the 4 anyway because any of the new phones out there would be an improvement over my buggy old phone and I don't REALLY need artificial intelligence to talk to me and #3 It costs less!  Now why would I buy a new phone just days after finding and re-bonding with my old phone you ask?  Well I'll tell you why.

Last night, as I was putting Charlotte to bed, I heard a helicopter outside.  At first I didn't pay any attention to it, but I gradually realized that the helicopter wasn't passing over, it was just hanging out nearby.  VERY nearby, from the sound of it.  I tucked Charlotte in and went downstairs to find a helicopter DIRECTLY over my front yard.  Seriously, the unraked leaves were flying everwhere and if anyone had jumped out of it they would've landed on my doorstep.  To help illustrate my point, please refer to this totally awesome picture I took out my window:

 Even more disconcerting was the fact that the helicopter had a spotlight trained on the electric line tower directly behind my neighbor's yard.  I checked that all the doors and windows were locked, and then glued my nose to the dining room window to try and figure out what the heck was going on.  Was someone climbing the tower?  Was there a violent convict on the loose?  I was too afraid to go outside and see first-hand, so I just stayed pressed against my window.  Then it occured to me that I could probably listen to the police scanner somewhere online, so I raced to my computer.  After a few failed attempts (did you know there are 3 registered sex offenders living within blocks of my house?) I found what I was looking for, but all I heard were requests for ambulances, nothing that would solve my helicopter mystery.  Then I thought to myself "The police have a non-emergency phone number!  I can just call them and maybe they'll tell me what's up!"  That was when I raced to my phone, picked it up, and in my highly alarmed state it slipped out of my hand and crashed to the ground.  After that, everything seemed to be in working order except the screen.  I could hear notifications and people calling, but without the screen I had no way of interacting with my phone.  Oh, and once Will came downstairs from putting Emily to bed and I snatched his phone to make my call the irritated lady on the other end of the line simply said the helicopter was there because of a "missing person".  I guess they didn't want to be found?

The helicopter incident had put me on edge, so I wasn't very comfortable not having a way to contact people in case of emergency (we don't have a house phone) and THAT is the main reason why I had to go get a new one.  Plus we've been talking about getting new phones anyway.  But that's not as exciting.

The helicopter incident also got me thinking about being a mom.  If I didn't have kids, I'm sure I probably would've just sauntered outside with Will to see what all the fuss was about, possibly while enjoying a beer.  But now that I'm a mom, all that goes through my head in an even mildly frightening situation is "Oh my God!  What if someone comes busting through the front door, they'll be between me and the kids!  How would I get up to the girls and get them out of the house???  Are we going to be on the news crouching in our front yard wrapped in police blankets like those families at the end of horror movies???  My children are 100% dependant on me but how can I protect them in a world where bad things I can't control can happen???(??)"  Then I start thinking about the poor mothers who have been through war or natural disasters with their children and have felt that fear 1000 times worse, and before I know it I am having a beer not for the enjoyment of it, but to relax my tightly-wound nerves.  Who would've imagined that being a mom was such a big responsibility?  Oh yeah, probably pretty much everyone.

On a lighter note, I got to meet Lauren from Oatmeal After Spinning this evening!  We both live in the same town, go to the same gym, read the same blogs, know a lot of the same people and believe in the same eating philosophy but somehow had never really met before.  We rectified that this evening by planning to take a Bodypump class together (although we had to stand across the room from each other because I was late...I was busy with some of those aforementioned mommy responsibilities)   It was exciting to get to talk to someone else who shares so many of my views on food, weight loss, exercise etc. and I can't wait to go to her clean eating potluck this weekend!

And not to belabor the point, but I have even MORE mommy responsibilities to attend to now, namely, bedtime.  Which will hopefully be helicopter-free this evening.