Do you ever have horrible visions of very bad things happening to your child out of fear that it might actually happen? Do you ever just create scenarios in your head of what could happen in order to devise a plan of action of how to take care of it? Or do you just imagine these things and sit there and get sad? If you do, then your name might be Brianna.
Take, for instance, tonight. Just another night here in our little household of three eating dinner, cleaning up, playing and dancing, and getting ready for bed. I could name of a bazillion things that went through my head JUST from tonight's happenings. Like at dinnertime when Dominic was eating his raviolis off of his fork. What if he poked himself in the eye? Or what if he stuck the fork in his mouth too far? I didn't have a solution- I just thought of the problem and kept 100% watch on him and his every move during dinner. After dinner, playing Jungle Gym on his high chair. He decided tonight it was a better idea to just fold himself in half over the bar, and hang upside down for hey, who knows how long? Five seconds... 7 seconds... 10 seconds! I said to my husband, "Oh my GOSH he is upside down for way too long! All the blood is going to his HEAD!!" And Dominic just continued to hang there, giggling and enjoying being a bat. Once he finally decided to wiggle down, I stared at him to make sure his color was normal and he wasn't stumbling around. How about the new Hot Wheels car daddy bought him for no reason at all. It is super small- what if he puts that in his mouth? Is he big enough for a Hot Wheels? What if he is walking and steps on it and falls over backwards and hits his head?
Of course there are standard fears, like what if he falls down the stairs? What if he runs out into the road? What if he's playing basketball, cuts his knee and contracts necrotizing facsiitis? I mean come on- we're seeing that one in the news WAY more often these days and it's TERRIFYING!
However, of all of the daily what-if scenarios I go through in my head, there is one that haunts me every single night. You see, back when we lived at our other house, hubz had installed cameras throughout the house, to include one in Dominic's room. Any time I wanted, I could turn the camera on and make sure everything was ok with my boy. Now that we're here in the new house, I don't have this luxury. There are no cameras. There is only my brain. And my brain gets very anxious after I put Dominic to bed and leave. He does a scream or two and calms down pretty immediately, but then 10 minutes later, tonight, he gives out this loud scream cry. It's only one- and that's the worst for me. If he cries for longer than that, then I know he's OK. But one scream cry? Not cool. The first thing that goes through my head is, "OMG he finally climbed out of his crib and fell on the floor! What if he broke his neck? What if he broke an arm? What if I go in there tomorrow morning and find him hurt?!?!" And then I start to feel like the world's worst mom. And I stand at the stairs wondering if I should risk going in and waking him up, because ultimately I'm aware that he's likely NOT fallen out of his crib and more likely has not broken his neck. From time to time, I feel overly guilty for not going in there and waking him up just to make sure he's OK.
I can recall several occasions where daddy has purposely grabbed our baby boy up after reading some horrible story about something bad having happened to another precious baby out there, knowing that he was going to wake our Dominic up, but not caring. That urge just to hold your baby and cherish every single moment you have with him, because one day, what if? It's so hard not to wonder or not to be paranoid when it's your own child. Other mom's reading this know what I'm talking about. The rest of you probably think I'm some overreacting paranoid crazy out there over protective of my kid from any and everything. I assure you that, though I may be a paranoid crazy, I certainly let Dominic get his fair share of head bumping, tips and falls, hands stuck in VCR, and various other painful learning experiences. And I typically let him deal with the less severe ones on his own without much intervention. But goshdernitalmighty, sometimes I just pick up my boy and give him a little bit of love. Why? Cuz that's just what we mom's do. Don't you remember when mom's kisses healed any and every ailment? :)
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