Lets all be honest, becoming a parent is super scary and super exciting all at once. Im sure I'm not the first nor will I be the last dad to say that I was scared out of my mind that my child could break if i did one thing wrong or let her out of my sight for even a second. But whats funny about that thought is that we do our best to keep our children as safe as possible but no matter how much baby proofing we do something can always happen. For example, my daughter started walking just after her 1st birthday. I was of course super excited and the continuous thought of "can I start training her now for the United States Woman's national soccer team?" kept roaming in my head. Anyways, she started to walk, super cool right? I thought so until we took our first steps outside.. Trust me when I say my reflexes have enhanced so much since becoming a father almost like I got these new super powers. So she's walking, I'm standing next to her watching like a hawk and I kid you not, a rock, a small rock, which I thought nothing of was in her walking path. And she stumbled, I dove like I was 1 point away from winning a gold medal and caught her (Thankfully). I don't think even the time in college when there was a shooting at my apartment complex (thats a whole different story) I was more scared than in the moment when I thought my baby girl was going to hit that cold concrete face first. Can you relate?
The walking kept getting better but with that came a new sense of curiosity. Because crawling is cool but when you walk you can reach things higher up. So the other day I'm sitting on the couch and she's playing near my Tv stand with the remote and laughing, having a great time. Then it happened. She grabbed a piece of paper that was on the top shelf of the tv stand, which on top of that paper was a couple DVD cases and I saw it happen. I was helpless. The DVD cases came crashing down like an avalanche I thought. I was so certain that she was going to be hurt and it was my fault because I was 5 feet away and so helpless in that moment.
But then the most amazing thing happened, As I'm leaping toward her like I was about to long jump in the olympics, she looked at me and laughed. Not a single tear nor even a sound of pain. Just a small giggle and she continued playing with the remote and crumbling up the paper. At that moment I realized two things: 1. my daughter is a tough kid, 2. she crumbled and ripped up a check I was supposed to drop off at the bank.
I just want to say, too all the dads and moms who worry about even the smallest mistake you might make as a parent. Just know that things will be okay. Your kid is a lot tougher than you might think. Now thats not a reason to let them go rock climbing. But it is okay to let them explore. We can say "no" all we wanted but sometimes the experiences, hopefully the less damaging experiences only, really help our kids to learn from right and wrong, safe to dangerous.
