Things That Keep me Awake at Night

... of course there is Alex...

But I'm talking about the thoughts in my head that keep me up at night. The close calls.

I remember once when Owen was pretty young - maybe 8 or 9 months old - we were near a stream somewhere and I held him over it a bit to watch the water rippling. He thought it was very exciting and laughed and reached out for the water. Then all of a sudden I thought to myself, what if I accidentally dropped him? And took a giant step back.

Now this wasn't a great big river, but still, I could have had one of those "if only I could take back that one second" moments.

Then last summer we stopped at a fresh water lake near the ferry to Langdale. It had been years since I had swum in fresh water and it brought back a lot of childhood memories. I was very excited to take Owen swimming in it. Nick had a headache and was snoozing under a tree.

Owen wanted me to swim him out to the floating dock. It didn't seem very far out and I am a strong swimmer. He held on to my back and we made it there just fine. But once we were there he was scared. The water was black and you couldn't even see your feet. He didn't want to stay on the dock very long and wanted to go back to shore right away.

Instead of telling him I needed a break before swimming back, I relented to avoid a fuss. Part way there I started to get tired. I tried putting my feet down to see if I could touch and I was still pretty deep. Because Owen was a bit scared he wasn't lightly floating on my back as he had on the way there and was weighing me down. I started to panic. What if I couldn't make it back?

Luckily a few seconds later I was able to touch the bottom and Owen was none the wiser about my moment of fear.

But I have nightmares about these two incidents. Particularly the second one. Little lapses in judgment that could go terribly wrong.

I'm thinking about these incidents today after reading about that poor family whose toddler died at Pearson Airport after falling out of his mother's arms and over a railing. She was momentarily distracted by her 4-year old.

A tiny lapse in judgment that went terribly wrong. I am sure she is having those "if only I could take back that one second when I turned my attention away" moments. I'm sure that will haunt her for the rest of her life. And my heart breaks for her, because that could easily be me, or any other parent.