Fright Night

I'm sitting on our back deck after running 7 miles in Shelby Bottoms, listening to a breeze rustle the leaves in the trees and enjoying 73 degree weather. IN MID-JULY! Evidently, a weather system from Canada has brought unseasonably cool weather into the middle Tennessee area. I don't know about all of that, but I sure am going to enjoy the mild temperatures this weekend. Tonight, we may break the record low of 57 degrees, set in 1976. Wow.

Tuesday evening, after work, Jude and I were upstairs in our bedroom with John Patrick. We were fairly engrossed in conversation, while John Patrick ran around our bed dragging a silk robe of Jude's he had pulled out of her clothes hamper. He was laughing, as were we. Suddenly, he tripped on the tail of the robe and fell straight backwards, banging the back of his head on the hardwood floor. He immediately began crying hysterically and I scooped him into my arms and hugged him. The truth is, I think it scared Jude and me worse than it scared or hurt him.

At dinner, his appetite was fine and for the rest of the evening, he acted completely normal. When I put him down to bed, he fussed a little more than normal, then fell asleep. As a precautionary measure, I called our pediatrician's office and the on-call nurse suggested we monitor him for any unusual behaviors - vomiting, excessive drowsiness, etc. - and to call back if we noticed anything unusual. She also suggested we wake him around midnight and change his diaper. If he woke up and cried, that was a good sign, since it would indicate he wasn't excessively drowsy. I've never been so happy to hear my son wake up and raise hell as when Jude went into his room, woke him and changed his diaper.

On one level, I realize that in his lifetime (and mine), John Patrick will take many, many more falls. That doesn't keep from worrying about him, though, and cringing every time he stumbles as he walks down the sidewalk in front of our house or crawls up the steps to our front porch. In fact, that's probably the single thing that has surprised me the most about parenthood - the constant worry. Is he sick? Is he hurt? Is he getting enough to eat? Is he where he needs to be developmentally? Is he happy? Is he sad? Is he tired? Sometimes, the only thing to do is to take a deep breath, smile and have faith that everything will be fine. That's what I tell myself, anyway.