This one is tough to write. As a mom, my number 1 priority is the safety of my child. Everything comes second to that. However, because safety is my biggest concern with him, I have had anxiety surrounding anything that could get him hurt. I mean anything. I have been working on trying to ease my concerns surrounding his falls and tumbles, but then, it seems like something happens to set it back.
Kids fall. It’s just what they do. Especially when they are learning to pull themselves up, crawl, and walk. I know this, and yet, I am still hyper-fixated on keeping him safe. I will say, I have gotten better at checking myself and being okay with some of his falls and tumbles. But then there are always the much more harder falls that end up happening.
Cooper fell off of our bed not too long ago. I will not go into the details of how this happened, but it is worth acknowledging that it happened. To date, this was one of the scariest moments for me as a mom. He fell on his face and had a bloody nose and was pale for a bit. We were able to stop the bloody nose quickly and his color returned shortly after. We kept an eye on him the rest of the night and the next day to make sure he was okay. If he would have fallen any differently, we could have a different ending to this story. We are so incredibly lucky that he ended up being okay.
So many moms try to keep their babies in a bubble to keep them safe, but that just isn’t possible. So while I struggle with finding a balance of being concerned about his safety and letting him take his falls and tumbles, I have my husband to lean on when the weight gets too hard to bear. Regardless of which one of us was watching Cooper during this fall, this is something that we both learned from.
I know I am not the first mom that this has happened to since I know quite a few that have experienced this. But it is something that deserves to be acknowledge publicly. This has given me mom guilt to the extreme and keeping it a secret isn’t helping. I know that I am not alone in this and telling this story, even just acknowledging publicly, shows that no one is perfect. No mom is perfect. No dad is perfect. And while accidents do happen, we are lucky he is okay. So, if you are a mom or a dad dealing with some guilt surrounding safety or an accident, just know you are not alone. None of us are perfect. We are all just trying to find our way the best we can.
Copyright 2023 Jessica Nash. All rights reserved.
