A scare

Well, this is weird. It's 2:45, and both boys are asleep! I hardly know what to do with myself. I could be cleaning or something, but you know. The only reason Dominick is asleep is that he didn't do much sleeping last night. It was bound to catch up with him, and it did just after noon as we were returning from Home Depot. (More on that below.) I let him sleep in the car for an hour and a half (don't worry--Noel and I were in the front yard), then moved him inside and put him on the couch. He'll be starving when he wakes up.

When we arrived at Home Depot, I put Noel in the sling and then got Dominick settled in one of those shopping carts that's shaped like a car. He was sitting at the right steering wheel. We headed toward the store and were just passing behind a large, parked SUV when it suddenly started backing out. It broadsided the shopping cart but kept moving, and I was screaming "STOP! STOP!" as the cart began to tip over. Once it was hit, I couldn't move it, and those things are impossible to maneuver even without a large vehicle pushing against the side. Finally, the driver heard me and stopped, getting out of the car to apologize and make sure we were okay. In the instant that he got out, I saw a cell phone in his hand, so I yelled at him to get off the phone. (If I were a bumper-sticker kind of person, I'd have one that says "Hang up and drive!" It's one of my pet peeves.) He said he wasn't on the phone. If not, he was about to make a call. He was a nice enough guy, said something about having a little girl. I was shaken, but Dominick seemed okay until we got inside the store. Twice he said something about the SUV pushing the cart, then his mouth turned down, and he started to cry. No wonder he fell asleep later. He was tired and traumatized on top of it.

As bad as it was that we were hit at all, I can't help thinking how much worse it could have been if I had, instead of slinging Noel, set his carseat on the shopping cart basket and had Dominick walking alongside me. Or if we'd been a couple of feet farther, the SUV would have hit me and Noel, too, not just the cart. I shudder to think of it, so I'll stop now.

It's 3:00 now, so I should rouse Dominick if I want him to have any chance of sleeping tonight.