We all fall down. (and sleep)

Me: Come here, my sweet thing. 


Baby waddles over toward the stereo stand where I am sitting, waiting with a book to read.


Baby trips over unassuming plastic duck. (damn you, cute, malicious yellow duckie!)


Me: Oops, baby boy! 


Baby is silent. A little too silent. In fact, it's the kind of silent that alarms moms and dads around the world that their baby is moments away from shrieking so badly that you feel your ears might bleed.


In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1......


Baby: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Me: Shhhh...it's ok baby, you're ok.....


I take a peek into baby's mouth and everything seems ok, there's just a little bit of blood......no scratch that, there's a lot of blood....shhhhh....it's ok baby....mama's going to help you.....let me just get some ice.....shhh......ok, ok, ok, i'm not going to faint, i'm not going to faint.....funny, i don't remember the counter being this high.....maybe i'll just sit for a few minutes, catch my breath......oh crap............

Well there it was: my first big test of mommy-helping-the-boo-boo-hood and I failed miserably. Is it wrong that baby had to console me when he was the one who nearly lost a tooth? Jesus, I am pathetic. Who knew I was scared of blood? I mean, when was the last time I had even been around that much blood? (and don't even think about my labour and delivery-how I managed to get through that I'll never know) When I was 6 or 7 years old I remember taking a tumble on the sidewalk. I certainly don't remember nearly fainting over it. In fact, I distinctly remember my own mother offering her shoulder to wail on as she swiftly and painlessly covered the boo boo up. My own baby is only 15 months old. How in god's name am I going to get through his clumsy toddler years? And worse yet, his elementary school years with sports, and equipment, like bats, and balls, and sticks, and the running, and the tripping and the falling....oh god....breathe, Carolyn, breathe.

I once said, while pregnant, that I would have no objection to my little one being contained in a bubble for the first 18 years of his life. Sure, he could go out, have fun, perhaps even sneak a beer or two at a party when he is 16. The little peanut just felt so safe, so contained in my belly that I knew once he was exposed to the world, and despite all my efforts and even my suggestions that a kid can have a normal life in a plastic bubble, that somehow I won't be able to protect him all the time. The idea is daunting and terrifying to me.

I was told that a little cut to the lip and a near tooth loss is nothing. "Oh, there will be worse," I am told. Geez, thanks, folks. As if I don't know this. As if I don't know that I am going to have to get a grip with the whole blood/fainting thing because being sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor while a screaming, bloody baby is wailing is certainly not solving any problems. As if I don't know that there will be times when my baby will hurt and there might not be any way for me to help him. I can't even think about his first heartbreak, his first rejection, his first big disappointment. So for now, I'll "shhhhhsh"  him and rock him and tell him mama's here and hopefully, for a little while, that will be enough. So long as the room stops spinning.