Safety

How did we all make it out of childhood alive? Personally, I owe a great deal of gratitude to Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of the antibiotic effects of Penicillin. If it weren't for this wonder drug, I'd probably be dead - I had at least three ear infections a year, sinus infections, strep throat. Yeah, I'm a hardy specimen.

Beyond the raging bacterial infections that I had to fight off, I grew up outside the era of the extra-safe childhood. Like, I remember the 80 foot tall slide made of unforgiving steel that towered above actual concrete. The slide would heat up all day long under the scorching sun silently waiting for our little exposed legs to touch it so it could give us a fine searing. If someone had poured olive oil on the thing, I'm sure the school playground would have smelled of scent of lightly sauteed school children.

If the burns inflicted upon us were not enough to challenge our existence, we had to ensure that we would never fall off the damn thing. Because if we did, we didn't land on that nice blacktop or the soft rubber mulch they use now. We would have hit the concrete and left a school-child body-shaped dent. Of course, that would mean we would have bled or broke something, so the upshot is that we would have gotten to go home early that day. Sweet! I can hear the shouts now "Oh, Jenny! Your'e clavicle shattered! You're so lucky!"

Now things are so very different. As a slightly neurotic parent, I am glad things are safer. There are so many things to worry about. Things to choke on, fall off of, get hit by, run into, and so on. With my particular children, I have two different sets of worries. With Adam, I have never worried about his physical development getting too ahead of his cognitive development. He's never been overly confident and doesn't usually climb things. But, he is very clumsy. I swear he'll be standing still in the middle of the room, nothing around him and he'll just keel over like some schoolyard bully just tackled him. I think he gets that from me.

Natasha, on the other hand, well, she is a spider. At 7 months, she was climbing things that Adam barely started climbing at 18 months. She's very small, which helps, but she's also very strong. I think she has the strength of 10 grown men. Every ounce of physical self-assuredness that Adam may lack, Natasha makes up for in spades. So, yes, she worries me.

I vascillate between wanting to protect my children from all the dangers that are lurking waiting to snatch them from my protective grip and make us spend time getting to know the ER nurse, and thinking that if, somehow, I made it through childhood with a few minor injuries, that my children can too. But then I get the One Step Ahead catalog and wonder if I should be doing more than keeping the kids off the table and out of the street.

Like, maybe I should buy two of these so that when they do fall down, which they inevitably will, the kids will not sustain a massive head injry.



Yes, this bumper bonnet is an actual product marketed to terrified parents like myself so that when Jr. slips on a piece of macaroni n' cheese, he won't hurt his head. Thanks One Step Ahead.


Thank goodness Natasha and Adam are past the crawling stage, otherwise I would have to buy these knee protectors. Wait, Natasha! You can't crawl yet, you need your knee protectors on!



Frankly, it's kind of funny watching a baby learn to crawl on a hardwood floor. And what baby would actually keep those little legwarmers on? Personally, I think it's a way for the leg warmer industry to try to make a comeback. They market to babies, hooking them on the product early on.

Ok, ok, you argue that accidents are the leading cause of death among children between 1-15. You make a good point, but the biggest number of these deaths are caused by car accidents. Even with $300 + car seats, we still manage to leave our children at risk in the car. Fortunately, our hospital has a car seat class. It's a two-hr class designed to scare the shit out of expecting parents who are not only stressed about the major impending life change, but now have to learn how to properly install a gadget with 9,000 parts, including 857 buckles.

I don't mean to sound righteous, but back in the day, safety in the car meant sitting as far away from your big sister as you could so she wouldn't kick you.

Somehow, all of us parents have reached adulthood. Looking at all the safety products, we scratch our heads wondering how we did it. I would like to say it's survival of the fittest, but given my track record with illnesses, I think in my case it's a combination of luck and survival of the meekest.

Now if I can figure out how to keep Natasha from spinning on the ceiling fan, I think I might be able to get my kids out of childhood alive.

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