Liana received her first black eye, a few days ago. As cute as that is, the story isn’t.

A few days ago, my father in law spilled some coffee in the van and his wife took it to get it cleaned. Well, it seems that they took out one of the child seats to do this. Then when they were done, they put it back. But did not attach and did not tell my mother in law that this had happened.

The next day she put my daughter in that seat and went somewhere. As she went around a turn, the whole seat fell over and Liana landed face first on some part of the car and was stuck there. Nana sees this and pulls over to get her out. Liana was really afraid because she was stuck for a significant amount of time, for a 3 year old. Now my daughter has a small black eye, nothing too big but enough.

I am very grateful that all that happened was a black eye. It could’ve turned into something as serious as her death, had my mother in law gotten in a car accident.

As much as this is the carwash’s fault, I want to encourage you all to check your car seats, if you have them, after you go to a car wash.

Take a moment today and reflect on what it means to be free. How we can say what we want about our leaders and not worry about reprisal. How we can travel without papers in our own country and the fact that we have the greatest government on the face of the earth. An representative republic is a great thing and our forefathers knew what we needed.

Now to celebrate it like it is intended, with drinking and blowing stuff up!