It’s no secret I went through a pretty traumatic experience last Friday. My baby choked on a hair clip and I had to spring into action to extract it from her throat. Blog here > How I Saved My Baby From Choking
It was an interesting day…
The day started, as for most working mothers of young babies, with the breast pump. lol I got dressed and snuck out of the house to make my way to Lahaina to do a news story for Maui Now news. It was a charter aboard the Trilogy Elua to bring lawmakers, educators, scientists, community leaders and business owners together to talk and learn about the status of our coral reefs. It was fascinating. (Click HERE for that story) We snorkeled and were taught how to discern between live, dead and stressed coral. By the time we got back to shore, I was exhausted.
My husband left for the Big Island midday so we had a sitter watching Wai. I got home around 2:30 p.m. and our sitter had just put baby down for a nap. She left and I went to check on baby. I even snapchatted it… I missed her so much while I was gone. (I’ve looked at that SNAP over and over trying to see if I missed something when I went to check on her) I was so tired, so I decided to take a nap. After all, I had an event to host and sing at just a few hours later.
You can read what happened after that in my BLOG about the choking incident.
After that traumatic experience – Waipuna seemed to be right back to her normal self – so I had to hurry to get ready for my gig. Of course, Wai had the HUGEST poopy diaper… the kind where you need to actually take a bath afterwards. So I did that and in the chaos, I actually slipped on the mucus Wai had expelled while I was working on her earlier. I would. Such a klutz.
I did my make-up / hair and got dressed. It was a gala so I wore the dark blue gown I bought to attend the Miss Hawaii pageant last year. I haven’t been able to wear anything like that in a while since I was pregnant – so it felt nice to dress up.
It was POURING. I’m not even sure how I schlepped the baby, carriage and all of my things to the truck without getting us wet. We got to the venue at the King Kamehameha golf club and there was no valet. Ugh! SOML! I got baby out under the awning and wheeled her into the ballroom. My friend Lia, who was also the organizer, agreed to watch her so I spun around and started to rush out to park my car.
That’s when I stepped on the front of my dress and heard a huge RIP. Yup, there went one entire panel off the front of my dress! Of course!
The event was going pretty well… there were a few hiccups during the fashion show and with the flow of the event, but nothing major. I was able to turn those mishaps into comedic moments… and then it was time for dinner. There was a table I dubbed the “tutu table” – all of the tutu (grandmas) were seated there and they wanted to take turns holding Wai. Fine by me! I’m happy to work with baby – she goes on stage with me all the time. But, it’s also nice to be able to focus and have a free hand! I sat at the “tutu table” and dropped a huge piece of creamy fish right onto the front of my dress. I guess this event was a “Trash The Dress” event.
Anyhoo, I’m telling you all of this because there are days it feels like EVERYTHING is going wrong. When it rains, it pours. Both figuratively and literally.
For me, this day was turned around by one simple moment. Getting on stage to sing. The song is special to me since I sang it to my husband at my wedding but being able to channel my emotions and let them out through song was the most amazing release. I couldn’t help but think of my uncle Jimmy Borges. He passed last week… the last time we spoke, he told me to “keep singing” … I had forgotten how singing makes me FEEL. It wasn’t my best vocal performance, but that didn’t even matter. It was HEALING… And just what I needed to end this terrible day and start the next one off on the right foot.
