holding my breath

Tonight we were in a bit of a rush for din­ner so my hus­band put the plates on the table before I could get the kids into their high­chairs. I was just about to lift the boy into his seat when I saw the girl reach up and pull the place­mat, plate and glass off the table. Thank­fully it didn’t land on her but my meal ended up on the floor. Pasta with shards of pot­tery isn’t what I had in mind for my dinner.

After we fin­ished eat­ing I was help­ing the boy get ready to put on his PJs when the hus­band called me over. I peered aroud the cor­ner and saw our daugh­ter sit­ting in her high­chair with the straps tan­gled around her. I picked her up and tried to dis­tract her but she had a one track mind. I decided to let her climb. I stood there hold­ing my breath.

I real­ize that she is test­ing her bound­aries. I also think that kids have a need to climb. I stood back and watched her fig­ure out how to get back up to the seat. I felt my stom­ach clench with worry. I wor­ried that she would fall. I caught myself from say­ing, “you’re going to fall”. She strug­gled and had a cou­ple of false starts but climbed back up. I cheered for her and picked her up. The hus­band came and col­lected the high­chairs to move them into the kitchen, behind the gate.

I moved her in the liv­ing room with her brother and went back to speak with the hus­band. Just a few moments later I heard one of the kids fall and then I heard her cry. My daugh­ter tripped over a pil­low. (I know! Who trips over a pil­low?) I scooped her up and saw a mouth­ful of blood. No miss­ing teeth but one heck of a cut on her lip.

Just a few min­utes ago I was wor­ried about her falling off the high­chair and then she trips over a pil­low! Crap!! I’ve seen both of the kids play­ing with some­thing seem­ingly harm­less and yet they still end up hurt­ing them­selves. They slip on a book or pinch their fin­ger in a toy. I felt guilty but the real­ity is that I can­not watch them every moment of the day, I can’t be there all the time. I have to trust that they will be fine when I’m not there oth­er­wise I don’t know how I’d ever leave them.

I was dis­mayed to find myself act­ing like a heli­copter par­ent. I’ll read­ily admit that I caught myself hov­er­ing. I see dan­gers that lurk, things that the kids can’t see. I hold my breath and fight the urge to run inter­fer­ence. I don’t want them to hurt them­selves. And yet, I know that I need to let them fig­ure things out on their own. I know that swoop­ing in every­time they encounter some­thing new or dif­fi­cult it won’t really be help­ing them. They need to learn by trial and error, it will build their sense of con­fi­dence. And yet, I still stand there hold­ing my breath, ready to catch them if the really do need me to swoop in. Some­one hold me.

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