When I got back from lunch, the red light insistently blinked on the phone; a sight I never welcome after a normally very satisfying break away from the office. One message was from a lady in undergrad studies and the other: daycare. I don’t care who you are, if you have caller ID and a child, when that number shows up, your stomach drops right to your feet. The message said something to the effect of: “I’m calling about Elliot – he’s fine – but I’d like you to call me back.”

Nhhg.

Luckily, he is fine but someone bit him – hard – on the arm. They were reading a book and the child – who shall remain unnamed – took a chunk, semi-sharklike, at Elliot’s chubby appendage. I know this happens at preschools all across this country but it’s always sort of a little strain on my motherly fortitude. Poor thing, is all I can repeat in my head. But I must quickly banish my worries; if I spent time agonizing over every little thing that happened to him, he’d have been in a handful of different schools and never settled. he likes it there, as far as I can tell, and I feel pretty good when I drop him off, which counts for a lot.

The “incidents” are just one of the parts of parenting that cause my heart to seize up on occasion. It used to be worse; like when he was just beginning to walk and he’d use his big head to sway his body forward and then the momentum to go careening down the hall, only to be met head on with the wall, of course. I am sure that being a mother will always be this way; the things that make my heart skip will be different as he ages but no less frightful.

Guess I’d better come to terms with this now.