Fear, itself

My biggest fear for my kids right now is seeing THEM afraid. It's happened once to each of them lately and it just kills me.

-- Last week, something was going on in the back of our subdivision. We weren't sure what, but we had heard 4 fire engines go by and were marginally curious. While AJ was "doing his work" on the computer (i.e., playing Ben 10 games), his Dad stepped out to our back porch to see if he could get a glimpse of the excitement. I was holding KT baby and stayed in, until approximately 1 second later when I couldn't stand missing the action! I went out to the porch, too. I was only out there about 3 minutes. When I came in, AJ had left his post at the computer. He was upstairs and I could hear him, hysterically crying, calling for us. He couldn't find anyone and thought we'd left him all alone.

It stopped my heart, and still does, thinking about it now.

-- Just a little while ago, I put KT baby down in her crib. She was fast asleep. I went downstairs, watched a little something on TV, and then about 10 minutes later Husband muted it... did we hear her? We listened and I started making my way for the stairs... yes, she was crying. Pretty hard, in fact. I wonder how long she had been? When I got to her room, she had rolled over onto her back and her blanket was covering her face. (Yes, she sleeps on her stomach.) I have no idea how the blanket got so high around her because I only put it over her feet, but her eyes were wide open as she cried, and she was obviously frightened by the situation. (Of course she's new to rolling front-to-back, so I'm sure that was kind-of a shock to her, too.) Poor baby. I nearly cried with her.


I've thought recently, after reading two cancer stories (the sad news of the Last Lecture professor, and one that I saw in that sneaky Reader's Digest -- it always has cancer stories, doesn't it?), that I don't actually fear myself getting cancer. Well, I mean, I do: I'm not very good at being sick or experiencing physical pain, so that would be hard... but mostly? I fear the kids' fears. The "Is Mommy very sick?" questions. I can't put into words how hard that would be for me.

Sorry for being a downer.