In a Blink of an Eye

I've been nursing an old injury these last couple days. Most of you can remember my capture-the-flag knee injury that ended with a trip to the ER and 6 bolts and a plate in my left knee. During these colder months it starts giving me arthritic pain. This last Friday I was limping around work and when I got home I could barely straighten or bend my knee, as if rigamortis set in. It was terribly swollen. I stretched a knee brace over it which did help.
The next day I did attend church with my family. I was still somewhat limping but it was not as painful as the day before. After church service I filled my arms with the kids sabbath activity bag, coats, purse and Alli and headed for the car to drop some of the items off. By the time I got to the car my knee began to scream at me at the same time Alli was kicking and squirming to get down. I set her down and opened the car door to throw the items in the car. One second later Alli made a beeline across the parking lot heading straight for a car that was backing up. I started to scream for her and then noticed that the driver of the car wasn't even looking backwards to see where he was going! Shear terror hit my chest as I saw Alli two feet away from the bumper of the moving vehicle. I scream Stop! Stop! While waving my arms and limping as fast as I could towards Alli. I think I made such a seen that the driver stopped the car abruptly just in time for Alli's chest to hit the back bumper. If he would have kept going his back passenger side tire would have ran right over her. I swooped her up in my arms and just began to cry.
Alli was, of coarse, completely oblivious to what just happened. She just looked at me confused and then hugged me back. That day the thought of those little kid leash things didn't seem like such a bad idea.