No forgiving those who trespass against me

I was all excited to post about Emmie finally sleeping through the night last night (7:15 p.m.-7:15 a.m.! Whoo!) and also finally saying "mama" this morning. Hello, two huge things within the first 10 minutes I was awake. It was almost a little too much.

But an intruder was in my house this afternoon. Yes, you read that correctly. Somone I did not know walked into my house and would have stolen something had I not been sitting in the living room WHEN IT HAPPENED.

Let me preface this by saying everyone is fine. No one was hurt. The kids were sleeping upstairs and there was a contractor here working, so I wasn't actually alone. But holy shit, it scared the hell out of me.

After the kids went down for their naps, I had an electrician here installing an outdoor outlet. He was parked in front of the house, so he had left the gate open while he was going back and forth to his truck. Because he was working from an outlet inside the house, he left the front door downstairs open.

While he was lying on the floor working on the wiring, a girl walked in the door downstairs. This means she walked down the porch steps to get there, so it was no accident she was inside the door. He told me he inquired as to what she needed and she told him she knew the people that lived in the house.

She then proceded to walk right up the stairs, which lead to the kitchen. I know she walked up the stairs because he told me she did, and I found the wet footprints that ended at the top, right where the hardwood floor begins. The tracks stopped there, which lead me to believe she got to the top, looked to see if anyone was around, saw me stuffing the envelopes for our holiday cards and hightailed it back downstairs.

Unfortunately, I did not see her. My phone rang, however, and it was the electrician calling me to come downstairs. I thought that was odd -- why didn't he just yell up to me?

When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw a woman who I do not know, standing at the bottom. As I walk down, I ask if I can help her. She says, "I see you're having some work done here. Can I do some work for you?"

WTF? Seriously? No. No, you can not do work for me. As a matter of fact, what the hell is this woman doing in my house, I ask myself. To her, I calmly say, "No. Please leave right now."

The electrician says she told him she knew me. She gets snippy and says she didn't say that, that she said she wanted to work for me. Those two are bickering while I am sizing her up and trying to figure out if her purse is big enough to hold a gun. (It was small, but could have concealed a small weapon.) I am sternly saying, "Get out. Now. Just leave. NOW."

She backtalks the electrician all the way up the stairs and walks down the street. I grab the phone and call 911 and tell them there was just a woman in my house that I did not know, with a complete discription of what she looked like and what direction she was heading. To the credit of the Chicago Police Department, they responded within five minutes. I did wonder if it would have taken that long had the woman still been in the damn house, but I digress. Five minutes is pretty good for the city.

They had a marked squad and an unmarked car looking for her, but by the time they got here, she had disappeared. The cop came in and filed a report and we traded some crime info about the haps in the neighborhood lately. I found out a condo directly across the street had their back door kicked in and their flatscreen TVs stolen last week. Awesome.

After the policeman left, I started to realize what could have been. This woman could have had a gun. She could have hurt me. She could have taken my kids. She could have hurt me and not taken the kids, but they would have been left alone for god knows how long because I couldn't help them. She could have stolen things.

In this case, our security system didn't matter. Our locks didn't matter. It was a crime of opportunity -- she was walking by, saw an open door and figured she would give it a whirl. She probably thought no one would be home and she could swipe something to make a quick buck.

The thing I keep coming back to is that she could have hurt my kids. My innocent, sleeping, beautiful children. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. I could care less about our stuff -- and granted, everything turned out fine and nothing bad happened -- but to think about my family being in danger pisses me off.

I guarantee you, this bitch's face is burned into my memory. If she walked by today, there's a good chance she will walk by again. Or that I could see her around the 'hood. And when I do, I am going to go all ninja on her ass and high-kick her in the gut. Then when she's gasping for breath I will sit on her and call 911.