There, but for the grace of God

My hands have finally stopped trembling enough to type.

Miss Cheeks fell down the stairs this morning. She pushed on the baby gate at the top of the stairs and it gave way. Riding the gate like a surfboard, Cheeks fell, head first, down six steps, skittering to a stop at the first landing.

When I heard the crash, I ran from the kitchen and Dear Husband ran from the other end of the playroom (he had been steps away when this happened). Cheeks screamed and screamed, but it quickly became apparent that she was crying from fear more than any injury. By the grace of God, she was fine, with the exception of a big bruise on her forehead.

By a strange coincidence, the fall took place 20 minutes before we were supposed to take Bee to the pediatrician, so we loaded both of them up in the wagon and rolled them down the street to their doctor's office (which is only two blocks away). The doctor checked Cheeks over and reassured us that she is fine.

She's napping now, but I cannot help but check on her every few minutes, in order to be reassured by her quiet breathing.

It is truly gut wrenching to think just how easily our little ones can be hurt, whether it's from a fall, or mischief in the medicine cabinet, or a car accident. Despite our best efforts, we cannot hold on to our children every minute. Accidents happen.

This is why I pray.

Appalled. . .with two Ps

My mother experienced quite a shock when she picked up Miss Bee from daycare last Friday. As they were about to leave, Bee said, "Wait, Mimi, wait! I forgot my billy club."

"Billy club?"

And indeed it was.

Miss Bee's special project of the week was to make a police baton/night stick/people whacker. And she had learned, as part of her unit just what police officers do with those batons.

"They hit people!"

I'm all for learning about community helpers, but hand painting carefully cut and glued paper towel rolls with multiple layers of black paint to make an authentic looking billy club, well, that's just going a bit too far. What's next, paper mache handguns?

And plus, if you're a four and a half year old with a little sister who gets on your nerves periodically, what would you do with a pretend billy club? Whack your sister, of course.

I know that as my children grow up, the world will rush in the the force of an ocean wave, washing away the sandcastles and fairy lands of childhood. But for a little while yet, I will be standing in front of that wave, diverting the water as best I can with my hands and feet and buckets. These early years are supposed to be the magical ones. Billy clubs have no place in my kingdom.

Two heartbeats

Cheeks McGoo is growing up and I can hardly stand it. My little precious baby, the daughter who at this time last year was cleaved to my body at least 15 hours a day, that little baby is now driving a car. And it's a red one. And she will periodically attempt to stand on top of it, just to show me that she can.

Thank goodness the car in question is only a small ride on toy as opposed to our family station wagon. If her legs were long enough, I'm certain that she would commandeer that one as well.

McGoo went from crawling and taking just a few tentative steps to reeling around the living room like a wild drunken sailor in the space of a week. Turn your back from 15 seconds, and she will try her best to climb the stairs. If I sit her down in the middle of my bed, she races to the edge, peers over, and . . . laughs.

I don't know what to make of her daring behavior. Miss Bee was a cautious toddler, and I hovered over her in the way that most first time parents do, waiting to steady any potential wobble.

I am not a daring person. I think I have done exactly one daring thing in my life--cliff jumping at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I wanted to impress my husband, so after he had taken the plunge, and a number of our other acquaintances had done so as well, I scrambled up the rough-hewn trail at the edge of the cliff.

Climbing barefoot over the sharp rocks and spiny weeds was a struggle. At the precipice, at the literal edge of sheer rock and nothingness, I looked down and saw the water sparkling almost 30 feet below. I made the decision then and there that I wasn't going to jump, and that I would try to go back down the way I had come.

But then, I looked down at my legs, and realized they were covered, just covered, in a swarm mosquitos and other biting insects. So I stepped out. I remembered to take a big step forward, away from the edge, as opposed to merely jumping into the air. (Jumping didn't get you enough distance away from the rocks.)

It was two heartbeats from the cliff to the water.

I closed my eyes as I fell. In doing so, I made a crucial mistake. When I closed my eyes, I tipped my head back and my whole body landed in the water as if I were sitting in an office chair. Feet, thighs and bottom. (I still flinch when I think the sound I made entering the water.) My dear husband swum over to rescue me; I was in complete shock.

The next day, the price of my daring would be revealed, in dark purple bruises from my heels to my back. Even the spaces between my fingers were not spared. I watched in fascination over the course of a week and a half as the bruises slowly faded from purple, to green, to yellow.

Someday McGoo and Bee will take their own big leaps, but hopefully not from a mosquito infested cliff-side in Guatemala. I am savoring these early years before independence.

My daughters, they fill the space between my heartbeats. I don't know how I can ever let them go.