Broken

Remember when you first brought your first baby home?  And remember how scared you were?  How you were afraid of every little thing?  I can remember lying awake with teeny tiny Ainsley in a cradle next to my bed, just listening to her breath.  Every catch in her breath would draw me from bed to check on her.  I can remember literally thinking...Do I really need sleep?  It's not that important, right?

Then time moves on, the baby becomes a toddler, then another baby comes along...and there's still always this underlying worry about "things" but you move about your days and that worry just becomes something normal and it's not a constant, daily, minute-by-minute fear.

Then something happens, anything...big or small...and it all comes rushing back and suddenly you're treating your 18 month old like a glass doll.

The other night, Cohen fell in our kitchen and hit his head on the corner of the wall.  I wasn't looking at him when it happened.  We had just gotten home and it was our normal "walk in the door, walk the dogs, get dinner ready, do homework - all before bedtime" chaos.

I was going through Ainsley's homework book when I heard the thud.  I turned around and Cohen looked up at me with an eye full of blood.  In that moment, I just reacted (freaked out) thinking his eye was gone.

At an octave I don't normally reach, I squealed "What happened?!?!  Oh my gosh, what happened?!?!"

I scooped him up and grabbed paper towels to wipe the blood.  I was relieved, but still shaking when I realized it was his forehead and not his eye.

I took him to the hospital as soon as Clif got home.  I didn't remember toys or snacks or diapers...just drove off feeling very helpless and scared.

He got 5 stitches in the ER...so nothing terrible.  He was never in any danger of losing too much blood or going blind or dying.  But I was just so freaked out.  And I've found myself hovering over him more the last couple of days.  Less okay with his fearlessness to climb anything, jump from anywhere, run always.  He wasn't doing any of those things when the fall happened.  I'm not exactly sure what he was doing, but I know he was standing in the kitchen one second and looking up at me covered with blood the next.

So one little accident and I'm suddenly that terrified new mom I was 7 years ago, afraid every move I make with be the wrong one.  Sure that one decision will upend my perfect life.  Thinking that one mistake will break my baby and I won't be able to stitch him back together.

He's fine, by the way.  Barely cried when it happened.  Cried during the stitches, but was ecstatic when they brought him a red Popsicle.  He's resilient and awesome and other than the line of stitches down his forehead, you'd never know anything had happened.  But I think I'll always wear the scar.