Welcome to my Weblog!
Welcome to 1 Mother 2 Another! To read my most recent weblog entries, scroll down. To read entries from one category, click the links at right. To read my journey from the beginning, click here. To find out more about me, click here.
Top 5s
Short on time? Click here to go to my Top 5s Page - links to my top five recommendations in every category from Breastfeeding Sites to Urban Living Solutions.

When Does It Stop?

Recently one of my girlfriends went to put her 15-month-old down in his crib for the night. As he hit the mattress, he grabbed for a small object nearby. After she pried the object out of his fingers, my girlfriend realized it was a small plastic vial full of medicine used to fill her son’s nebulizer. He’d somehow gotten hold of one and hidden it in his crib. And if he hadn’t brought it to her attention, he’d have found it in the middle of the night and shoved it in his mouth.



These heart-stopping moments seem be par for the course as a parent; we spend our whole lives with our kids trying to anticipate danger but doing an incomplete job at best. We simply can’t anticipate every possible scenario and protect our children all the time. And for every near-miss that happens like the one in my girlfriend’s house, there are several more that happen that you never know about: the drunk driver who decides to turn one street before yours right before you enter the crosswalk, the spoiled chicken at a restaurant that you decide at the last moment not to order, the cabinet full of cleaning supplies accidentally left open that your toddler decides is not worth investigating.

If you think too much about it, you’ll go crazy. But it’s our job to think about it, at least some, so we can act as that advance guard whenever possible.

I remember when Maddie was born, I thought, “Ok, if I can just make it through the prime SIDS age, I can stop worrying.” Then I went to the pediatrician and found out that the soft spot on top of her head doesn’t close for 1-2 years! “Ok, if we can just get to the point at which her soft spot closes, I can stop worrying.” Which of course, becomes “Ok, if we can just get to age 3 so she can try nuts and I know she’s not allergic, I can stop worrying.”

The more self-sufficient and autonomous Maddie becomes, the more I naively thought the worries would trickle off. Instead, there are simply a whole new slew of fears and dangers lurking to take the old ones’ places. When does it end?

Some family friends of ours had a 24-year-old son spend several months last year backpacking through India and Nepal. He ended up at the foot of Mount Everest and took a solitary walk from Everest base camp (16,000 feet elevation) to snap some exciting glacier pictures before heading home the next day. That was the last anyone saw of him.

Seeing his parents deal with their frantic fear, a fully mounted rescue operation, and finally resignation that he was dead, truly brought home to me that as a parent you never stop worrying. You simply lose some of your ability to protect your children so immediately. I know, now that I’m a parent, that his mother and father didn’t start worrying when their son set foot on Everest; their worries began months earlier, when their son packed his travel bag and headed out.

So what do you do? Of course, the older your children get, the more your grasp loosens; it has to. But the fears don’t lessen. I’m fortunate in that I have Christ to comfort me – turning my burdens and fears over to Him is the only way I stay sane, and I know He loves Maddie even more than I do. But it’s a double-edged sword: I daily have to turn Maddie over to Him, knowing she is His, and I’ve just got her for safekeeping for a few decades. That I am entrusting Him with her life is at once the scariest and most comforting thought I have.

I trust God with Maddie’s life, since after all, He created her; she was His before she was mine. But it doesn’t mean I don’t continue to worry, continue to stand vigilant guard over her. My girlfriend is also a Christian and I know she feels the same way about her son.

But it doesn’t mean she’s not going to check the crib every time she puts her son down now.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

House Rules

Here are the rules for posting comments on 1mother2another.com. Posting a comment that violates these rules will result in the comment’s deletion, and you’ll probably be banned from commenting in the future.

1) Register first. If you would like to post a comment, you must create an account with us. Check out the home page to do so.

2) Constructive comments only. If you cannot maintain a respectful tone in your posting, even in disagreement, your comment will be deleted. We’re all trying to find our way in this thing and are struggling to be the best moms we can. If you disagree with something I say, feel free to politely email me. If you disagree with another reader’s posting, you’re welcome to kindly post in reply. Vitriolic diatribes will be deleted. This site is about encouraging and supporting, not tearing down and chastising.

3) Questions welcomed. If an entry raises a question, you’re welcome to email me directly or post it. Keep in mind that postings will result in public replies by strangers and not just me.

4) Don’t steal. All original writings contained within this website are under copyright protection. If you link to us, please credit us as your source and provide a link back to our website. If you're interested in using an excerpt in published material, please contact us.

5) Share your photos! We'd love to have photos from our registered readers to show on our home page under "Maddie's friends". Email us a jpeg of your little one's best photo to photos@1mother2another.com. Please, no photos from professional photographers which fall under copyright protection.