One of my main concerns as a parent is that my children can trust me, can count on me to do what's best for them, to take care of them as best I can. Tonight I failed.
Here's a little back story ...
In an effort to simplify around our house, we moved all the diaper changing accoutrements to the laundry room, and set up a changing table on the dryer. Mollie, newer to the house than the little man, was unfazed by the change, but Baylor has spent many a diaper change terrified of falling. I have reassured him time and time again that he won't fall, that I have him. That he can trust me to take care of him and not let anything bad happen to him.
I promised him this.
And then tonight ...
I was changing his diaper in his room, his changing table set up on a low (3') dresser, when Mollie started to fuss after having lost her binkie. I knelt down to put her binkie back in, satisfied that Baylor was preoccupied playing with his butterfly. Suddenly I heard a thud behind me! I whirled around to see Baylor starting to cry only inches away from me on the floor. He fell off his changing table. In his 1 year, 10 months, and 27 days on this planet, he has NEVER fallen off his changing table ... until tonight. Amid all his fears about falling off, I slipped. I let my guard down for a second, and - worst of all - I let my son down; I broke his trust.
Yes, thankfully trust was all that was broken, but it breaks my heart to think that I have lost any of the little man's trust. I remember my sixth grade teacher telling us a story about the importance of trust and how once it's gone it takes a long time and hard work to gain it back. That story and lesson stuck with me (thanks, Mrs. Phillips!) and since then I have striven to be a person people can trust. Some days I succeed, some days I fail. But ever since Baylor and Amalia were born, I have realized that I need to be a consistently trustworthy person in their life; to show them that in this world of uncertainty I will be their rock. When I make promises to them, I do so with the intent that I will not break it; and I make sure not to promise something I can't deliver on.
I promised to keep Baylor safe, from everything including gravity, and I failed tonight. As a result, my heart is aching a bit, but there isn't anything I can do about it now except work to gain back the trust I lost tonight.
I just have to do better tomorrow, and every day after.
1 comment:
Honey - I love you, you gotta cut yourself some slack. We all mess up and no parent is perfect. Just do your best, which you have been doing really well.
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