Life Lesson for My Little Men #40

So I am a worrywart.  Always have been.  Most of my life, I was the cautious one in the room, taking my time to do things that friends would do with reckless abandon.  Being a dad has in ways magnified this.  I know what folks will say and the realist in me constantly repeats in my head "you can't spend your whole life worried about what will happen to you, or worse, them."  However, all the efforts of my partner, family, friends or realistic Ian still leave me alone in a place of anxiety about what I cannot prevent.  Before you go thinking I am paranoid or over protective I'll stop you, because I am not, in fact rarely had my worry translated into action.

For example, we have a curved set of stairs in our house (hardwood) which are outfitted with a baby gate at the top, however, Adrienne and I made a conscious decision to teach James and Andrew how to use the stairs at an early age.  Recognizing we wouldn't always be there to hold hands or carry, this was an important skill for them to master.  This was not a flawless approach and there were some small tumbles, nothing permanently bruised or damaged and now they move up and down freely.

Recently though this worry is manifesting itself in my conscious and unconscious thoughts. Yesterday as an example we were playing ball hockey in our shared drive (me standing at the bottom retrieving errant shots (which happens a fair amount when the sticks are in the hands of 2.5 year olds).  As I retrieved a ball from behind our neighbour's cargo van, Andrew followed and I felt the need to stop him and tell him to never walk behind the van.  I know that this one moment in time will not stick in his memory and that our role as parents when they are this young is to set them up for success in a way that doesn't require decision making that is beyond their stage of development, but the vision in my head was of my neighbour reversing over my son and me not being able to stop it (not that our neighbour is reckless or doesn't have two little ones of his own).   I share this story as a reflection opportunity in an effort to help me or anyone else understand the struggle between what I know and what I feel.

So my little men who are blowing my mind each day with what you are learning, I guess the lesson is this: there are times when worry and caution are important and it is important to recognize and think about why you are feeling anxious, after all it is a survival technique.  Try not to let it dominate your experiences and keep you sheltered from things that will open your mind and your eyes.  As you navigate the world, it is entirely possible that anxiety, stress, and worry overcome everything else.  In these moments, I hope that you will have people in your life who will support you and empower you to cope and persist.  I also hope that you can include me in that group but will try and understand that this may not be the case all of the time.

Love always, 

Dad

PS - thank you so much for letting me be Fred from Scooby Doo, I always thought his ascot was so cool!