Dangerprone Daphne

I am diligent perhaps bordering on obsessive about Gracie’s safety. I read every review on every car-seat before we bought one. I turned down my mother’s generous offer of a baby bed because, while a coke can would not fit between the slat, a small baby doll’s head would squish through if I pushed very hard and mashed the soft doll’s head so that its ears met in the middle. Granted, Gracie had a rather large head and it is not the most pliable thing either, but still, my motto is “better safe than sorry”. I wouldn’t let Gracie sleep in a nightgown until she was nine months old because I was worried that the gown might hike itself up in the night, wrap itself around her neck, and choke my precious baby while she slept. She’d been eating solid foods for a full three months before I was brave enough to give her a biter biscuit. You know, fear of choking. “What If?” has been my mantra. What if I let her do this and she hurts herself? What if I buy this toy and it scratches her or pokes her eye out? What if I take her here and it’s too cold, too hot, or lightening strikes? Yes, I am over-protective of my baby. Luckily, Gracie has a father who is a little more relaxed about a lot of things, so she hasn’t spent the last 14 months locked up in a padded room, wearing only clothes that could never attack her, and eating food that has been appropriately mushed by her slightly goofy mother.

The thing that I find so peculiar is that every time something dangerous happens to Gracie or she gets hurt, I am the one that’s with her. Not these other slackers in her life who will let her do such dangerous things as let her walk within 1000 yards of a street or an open body of water or heaven forbid, let her taste something as dangerous as say, oh a French fry. Nope, all of Gracie’s grand adventures happen when she’s with the chief of the safety police, her mother.

When Gracie was six months old, my husband, a National Guardsman, was called to active duty to help with hurricane relief in Florida. Along with scrambling around to find babysitters for her (my husband at that time was a stay-at-home dad), and making sure that he had enough calling cards and baby wipes (showers aren’t a guarantee when you’re on hurricane duty), I had to face one of my biggest fears – giving Gracie a bath. Yes, I had managed to go six months without bathing my daughter. That was always something that her Daddy did for her. I had thrown myself headlong into motherhood – I had nursed her, changed her diapers, managed to cook dinner with her on my hip – but somehow, I had yet to give my baby girl a bath by myself. So, the day came two days after my husband reported for duty that I was forced to either give Gracie a bath or start dousing her with a whole lot of perfume. She had just started sitting unassisted and I thought I could handle it – after all, I am a college-educated 36-year old woman. So, I stripped her down, ran her bathwater, grabbed a wash cloth and soap, and placed her ever so gently in the tub. She was taking a bath in the big tub – she had recently outgrown her infant tub. She splashed and gurgled while I soaped her off and washed her hair. I actually started to relax a little. Then, it happened. I let go of her for a second to place her shampoo bottle on the ledge of the tub. She fell over face first into the tub. I heard a loud thud as her head connected with bottom of the tub. Instantaneously, I scooped her up and started thumping her back. She sputtered and then cried for a second and then grinned. I noticed that she had a red mark on her forehead where she’d bumped her head. I dried her off, put a fresh diaper on her and then took her out to the living room, where Becky, my sister-in-law (who was watching Gracie while I worked that week) was waiting. I lay Gracie down on the floor on a blanket and told Becky to watch her while I went to get my flashlight and my What To Expect The First Year Book. I was worried that hitting her head on the bottom of the tub may have given Gracie a concussion. So, I shined the flashlight in her eyes and made sure that her pupils were contracting correctly. Then, I checked my book to see what the other signs of a concussion are. Gracie had none of them. Once I was convinced that she wasn’t suffering from head trauma, I moved on to my next concern. I was afraid that she had sucked in so much water in the 1 millionth of a second that she was under water that she was going to succumb to that malady known as “Delayed Drowning” – you know the one where you drown minutes or even hours after you’ve been pulled out of the water showing no signs of drowning. At this point, my sister-in-law started to look at me a little strangely. She went along with the concussion thing – after all Gracie did have a small mark on her head. But, delayed drowning? “Daphne, I think she’s fine,” was all she said. But I think at least part of her was thinking, “Okay, you crazy person –the baby is giggling and cooing and rolling over. There’s nothing wrong with her other than the fact that her mother is insane. “ After a few minutes, my panic finally subsided. I did lay awake watching Gracie most of the night. And the next day, I did go and buy a blow-up Ducky tub to put in the big tub. But, Gracie seems none the worse for wear – taking a bath is still one of her favorite things to do and amazingly, giving her a bath is now one of my favorite things to do with her.

I think my manic approach to safety comes from a lot of sources. First, I read too much and I watch way too much TV. If a child has ever been injured by an object (everything from a NERF football to a shoelace), I’ve either read about it or seen it on Oprah. My memory, which is pretty good anyway, is especially effective in remembering stories I’ve heard about injured children. The second reason for my insanity comes straight from my life. Dangerprone Daphne describes me to a T. If something weird or wacky is going to happen, it is going to happen to me. I love to rollerblade. I broke my foot – not rollerblading, but tripping in a flower bed walking across a parking lot. I love to ski. I got a pretty bad concussion – not from skiing but because two of my friends were swinging me (one holding my feet the other my arms) and the friend holding my arms let go thinking that the one holding my feet had already let me go. My accidents always happen in the least-likely, most-mundane circumstances. I think that’s why I worry so much about Gracie when she’s doing life’s simple little things. I worry that she may have inherited this “dangerproneness” from me.

Last week, Gracie & I were at Lowe’s buying a new stove and some storage containers. She was sitting in the cart, strapped in snugly, of course. After we paid at the register, I pushed the cart with Gracie and our purchases out to the parking lot. When we got to the truck, I pushed the cart up beside the bed of the truck. I reached in the cart, grabbed the first storage container, and put it in the back of the truck. I turned to grab the second container. Empty space! The buggy was gone! Out of the corner of my eye, I see my buggy with my baby rolling quickly away from me down an incline. I ran, faster than I’ve ever run in my life, and grabbed the buggy before it made it into an open aisle of traffic. My heart was in my stomach – my adrenaline was pumping – I believe I could have run a 2-minutes mile if necessary. What does my baby do when I get her? Cry in relief that I’ve rescued her from danger? No, Gracie laughs. Not a little giggle, but a full belly, light up your face laugh. Was she laughing at the way the wind felt in her hair as she zoomed through the parking lot in her makeshift rocket or was she laughing at the site of her inarguably out-of-shape mother sprinting across a parking lot with fear written across her face? I’ll never know – but I do know that her laughter continued for a good ten minutes after I got her in her car seat and headed home.

I realized after our parking lot incident that I can’t protect Gracie from everything. I can’t protect her from the completely unexpected. I can’t rob her life of joy because I want her to be safe. My life, even with its accidents and mishaps, is a life full of excitement and happiness, and I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter to miss any of that. I could probably prevent some of her spills and falls, but I would also be taking away some of the wind in her face, some of the thrill of adventure. So, I’m learning, slowly but surely to let her take risks, to let myself take a few risks with her, and then do my very best to be there to scoop her up when she falls or run after her when she rolls away…..