what terrifies me

.... is waking up to find this in the kitchen!!!!

Somewhat more seriously, I have found that lately I have been overwhelmed and struck with a strong (if pretty unfounded) fear that my kids will just stop breathing. I think that it was brought on by the fact that my oldest childhood friend did in fact unexpectedly pass away last week, and though I hadn't seen him in person in five years, it still rang my bell emotionally, so to speak. I still haven't processed through it enough to give it justice here, but I will soon. In addition to that, Judah has come down with something that spiked his temperature to over 105 degrees the other day, and clogged up his little head and made him look at you with what NCIS once described as the "thousand-yard stare." Poor little man.

In truth, though, the fear that they will just unexpectedly stop breathing is a little over-dramatic of me. Only one of them ever has, and it was over two and a half years ago now. Even that, as the Queen later informed me, is apparently not a big deal-- sometimes very little babies don't breathe for 20-30 seconds while they are still getting used to life outside the womb. I just happened to panic right around 15, I guess. Anyway, that terrifies me like nobody's business to the point where I STILL go into their rooms at night to check on them even though there is absolutely no logical reason.

Tuesday was a bit of a different animal. Judah was having trouble breathing, and so I had finally gotten him to sleep around 7pm and settled myself into doing some property management with Judah in our little video monitor. I put the headphones on and tried to relax with a little U2 or Cat Stevens as the night wound down. Five minutes into my self-therapy session, BANG! BANG! BANG! I looked in the monitor. Nothing-- Judah looked out. Rachel and Elijah were out getting him some medicine, and there was no way they were back yet. Dashing upstairs, I found that the problem was a) our kind friend Mary simply wanted to see Rachel and Elijah, and b) I had forgotten to put a shirt on when I ran upstairs... I now want to use this forum to apologize a thousand times. No one should have to see that.

Going back downstairs, I hadn't even gotten the headphones on when I heard Darth Judah in the monitor... for whatever reason, it sounded like like he could barely breathe at all, so fueled by my neuroses, I sprinted upstairs and hung out with him for fifteen minutes until his wheezing stopped and he drifted back off to sleep. At this point, I was about as twitchy as a squirrel on caffeine (you'll have to watch this clip for full effect) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmCjMRAzCiE and hyper-paranoid. But nothing happened, so I finally eased into the exciting world of bookkeeping and utility bills...

... then I heard a child screaming. It sounded like Judah, so I grabbed the monitor. Nothing. Judah was sleeping peacefully-- at least it looked like it. I didn't believe it for a second. I tore upstairs-- Judah was sleeping peacefully. But the cries were louder now. What if someone else's child was trying to breathe? Nothing out the front door. No one but Ina and Mary in the back. I opened the door, and saw Rachel and Elijah off to the side in addition to the two aforementioned ladies. "Do you hear screaming?" I said.

"You're a little late for that," Ina said. "Elijah's had his head stuck behind the railing here for two minutes. He finally just got it out now. " Elijah was eventually fine, although I hope this doesn't end up as one of these fears-for-life like when I got buried under a snow igloo. But I think the lesson that I walked away from that night was that I can't protect my children from everything, even if I try and try and waste all my time on it. At some level, my paranoia doesn't do much, and they are in the hands of God. Really, when you think about it, it's not a bad place to be. I'm not sure that I will stop being terrified of them ceasing to breathe anytime in the near future, although I'm pretty sure the LJ won't stick his head behind the deck anymore :)