It Happened.

I'm surprised it took this long, but the inevitable happened today. Mason fell victim to Teagan's clumsiness. Yes, after nearly three months of worrying about it and anticipating it, we have crossed that bridge and survived it.

I set Mason on the floor, propped on the Boppy and tempted fate by turning my back for 10 seconds and walking into the kitchen (which is essentially the same room with our main level being so open) to return a burpcloth to the drawer. Of course my view was obscured by the couch, and I heard a shriek of pain from the Little Mister and whirled around to see Teagan run and cower in fear by the reading chair. I scooped up a screaming, red-faced Mason and made an initial assessment that he would indeed make it, turned to Teagan and hissed through my teeth, "What happened?!" to which she muttered, "I don't want to talk to you, Mommy." Seeing the fear in her eyes and imagining what my face must have looked like, I pulled some wisdom from 'Soft Spoken Parenting', a book I just renewed from the library for the 11th time, and put myself in her shoes...

I had made a mistake. A mistake that hurt my baby brother and caused him to make noises I'd never heard before. Through no fault of my own I had tripped and was on top of him before I knew it, just as surprised and almost as scared. Next thing I know my Mum, one of the few people in this world who is supposed to love me unconditionally and make me feel safe and secure is snarling at me for something I didn't mean to and was sorry for. 

That's when I was able to calm myself down, understand the fear in her sweet little face and calmly extend my hand and say, "I know it was an accident, sweetheart. Please tell me what happened." And she was able to recount to me that she was unrolling the Twister mat (yes, it was a Twister before breakfast kind of day) and tripped onto Mason and she was super sorry.

We all sat together for a few minutes and calmed down and then it felt like the right time to discuss the fact that we need to be extra careful when Mason is around.

I don't have many Mum moments that I'm proud of, but I felt like I grew a little bit as a mother today, in the face if an event I've been dreading for almost 3 months to the day. Now that it's happened, we can all relax and realize that it will happen again and we'll all (crosses fingers and knocks on wood) made it through and I'll have an opportunity to grow as a parent that I hope I will not squander. But we'll give Twister a rest for a few weeks just in case.