Today was like any other day, woke up at 6:45 AM for Ella's morning bottle, managed to get 2 more hours of sleep in. Finally up by 9AM ( I know late day) when Ella shouted at me to wake up from her crib, made some peanut butter toast, a cup full of water and turned on Sesame Street. The number of the day is actually pretty catchy. Today I had multiple things to carry with me to the car so I figured hey Ella won't run straight out the door, she will wait, she knows to wait for daddy. Well I couldn't of been any more wrong. She darted out of the front door, knowing there are stairs I dropped everything and ran for her. And at one moment she was at the top, and the next I had her shirt grabbed with my hand as i see her do a flip and just in time I am able to save her from a what would of been a very hard fall down a flight of stairs. I am convinced that once you become a father you develop a spidey sense (spiderman) and your reflexes just get way better. I thankfully managed to slow down the fall but my heart stopped at that moment when I saw she was about to go tumbling down head first a flight of stairs. She cried and I just held her as close as I could, me shaking and crying from the fear and her crying from the landing. 10 minutes later, she tries to jump down the stairs and at that moment I realized my toddler has absolutely no fear.
Now there been more moments in my life than I can count where I wish I would of been braver, had no fear and just went for things. But if I had even lost half of the fear I have I still don't think it would compare to how little fear she has. I asked my self a million time, what can I do to to prevent things like this? The answer is that I can't prevent this stuff. Shes going to try a million new things. Shes just going to have to deal with her dad squeezing onto her hand during her spontaneous thrill searching.
Later in the day we went to the park. And something beautiful happened, she went to go climb some more stairs (I hate stairs) and of course I said no and took her right down. But now as she was about to go for it again for a fifth time, she looked back at me and stuck her hand out. Now I don't know if this is because she finally realized somethings she needs help with or if she figured out maybe holding my hand will stop me from taking her down or telling her no. But it felt like she was asking permission in her own way, not permission to do it because to be honest I don't think shed stop if I said no, but rather asking permission to do it together. And the best feeling in the world to me is to be known Im needed by her.
Now as I'm finally laying down to go to bed and dreading the amount of night mares Ill experience which probably will include stairs, stair cases and anything you can climb down or up. I hope on the day my daughter figures out I have a blog she reads this and knows that Im always gonna be there to catch her when she falls.
