And, the World's Worst Mom Award Goes to...

Insert my name here.  Well, at least, that's how I felt.  A Mother's heart breaks when her kid's sick.  Scared.  Hurt.  Lonely.  But it disintegrates into little, tiny pieces when they are the cause of the hurt.  I hurt my kid this week.  She's fine.  I may never recover.

Now, just to get this straight in case someone I don't know accidentally comes across this blog post by Googling frightening things like child abuse, I was not a mission to hurt my kid.  She was not frustrating me by crying, making me angry by refusing to sleep or aggravating me by her odd eating habits.  I was simply moving too quickly to get lunch ready for some friends and...wham.  Her head.  My kitchen doorframe.  I nearly threw-up.  She cried for approximately ten minutes.  I cried for 3 hours after my guests left.  After several frantic phone calls to her pediatrician who assured me that if she has no bump, did not vomit, her eyes are dilating normally and she wasn't unusually lethargic, she is fine and I can stop tying up the phone line.  I, of course, did not believe him and sat by her swing with a flashlight, repeatedly checking her eyes.  Panicking each time she spit up (Does that constitute as throwing up?!?).  Refusing to let the poor girl fall asleep.  ("See? Her eyes are closing! Something's wrong!" to which my rational husband replied, "She's been awake for four hours.  She's three months old.  She needs a nap").

I've found that it doesn't take much on a regular day for something to make me feel as though I'm a terrible Mother, it's nearly impossible to think otherwise when you ram your kid's head into a solid piece of wood without a rational explanation ( such as, avoiding an extra-terrestrial invasion or ducking for cover after a gas line explosion).  However, here's the skinny on the bare facts of parenting a little human being.

1.  She will get hurt.  Sometimes it will be my fault, sometimes it won't be.  Life's just like that.

2.  I cannot prevent all bad things from happening to her.  I can do my best, but I'm not a superhero.

3.  I need to accept that her little life does not belong to me.

So, I've begun a list that I run through in the morning to help me distinguish between the things I am entrusted with, and the things that are out of my hands ( inspired by my friend Jill, who was there for lunch that day and assured me that Ellie had suffered no form of brain trauma undetected by my new-mom eyes).

I ask myself the following questions:

Is she breathing? Check.

Have I changed her? Check.

Did she eat? Check.

Anything broken or bloody? Nope.

Then I congratulate myself for God's mercy in keeping her alive, have a cup of coffee, and try to get on with my day without googling when these stinkin' blocked tear ducts will clear, or why her poop had a greenish tinge this morning, or- I did say try.