Contrary to popular belief, planning ahead and being detail oriented does have its drawbacks. For example, I am paranoid…a lot….about everything. I’m sure it’s normal for mothers to be a little bit worried or somewhat scared but I go over the top when it comes to being fearful of bad things happening. I’m not borderline needing to be committed (yet) but now that I have a child I find myself thinking up the worst possible sceneries for just about every situation…
1. Winter driving season is fast approaching and every time we meet an irresponsible driver on our morning commute I immediately assume that one of them is going to crash into us because they’re going 95 mph on an icy road.
2. This summer we got pretty lucky. It rained a lot but we actually didn’t have very many tornado warnings, which was quite unusual for this part of the country. That’s probably for the best anyway because whenever red shows up on the radar I picture us huddled in the basement, fighting to keep killer mice (who suddenly appear in our basement) off of Rachel while the winds destroy our home and fly our cats to Canada.
3. I hate stairs. If we could move to a ranch-style home that would be marvelous. Rachel recently discovered stairs and loves to try to climb them. Last night I swear I was only gone for 10 seconds and when I came back into the room I looked over and she was half-way up to the first landing. I instantly screamed because I couldn’t see her making it off the stairs without breaking her neck and landing me in jail for child neglect. It finally occurred to me that I could safely remove her myself and will purchase baby gates this weekend.
4. What if my child looks perfectly healthy but indeed has some kind of scary life-altering disorder or disease? Or what if all of the sudden she stops progressing and never learns how to walk? Sometimes she sits on the floor with her legs crossed and flaps her arms; we think she’s REALLY excited about something but what if she’s actually trying to tell us that she can’t breath or her finger is about to fall off? All valid concerns people.
I’m telling you…my mind wonders and these kinds of thoughts roll around in my brain ALL DAY. When I was younger (and probably less responsible) I would simply have a cold adult beverage to dull my scary thoughts. What do moms do?
Apparently one of our office phone numbers is very similar to the local Psych Department because every so often we get a caller who needs to speak with someone in Psych….perhaps they’re actually messengers from God who are trying to tell me to take a hint.
Interesting……
Or perhaps they are still looking for me, since that was my phone of coarse. :(
ReplyDeleteWelcome to motherhood! I have all of those fears and more. I really think it's part of the mommy gene. What I try to remember is that God, who loves us very much, loves our children even more than we do.
ReplyDeleteJulie- you're right...we should just blame you. :)
ReplyDeleteRachel- I'm not sure yet if I have the full mommy gene but I do know I really appreciate learning from seasoned mothers such as yourself.