The cold hard truth

As a parent, one of the things you want most is to always be able to protect your child. I find myself telling Jenna a lot, "It will be okay, Mommy's here." "I'll save you!" "Don't worry, I'll protect you."
As much as I'd like to believe this is true, it's just not possible to ALWAYS be there, and we learn that with their first fall, scrape, bruise, etc. It's the COLD. HARD. TRUTH. I joke about it, but she really can't live in a bubble.

Of course, we went through this a couple of weeks ago when Jenna fell at school and had to have surgery to remove her tooth. I wasn't there to protect her.

Most recently, our smoke detectors went off at 2am! I ran right away to get Jenna, she was crying, screaming, and shaking, she was so scared. I felt so bad, I wanted to cry for her. When I got her calmed down and my heart rate returned to normal, I felt bad that she was so scared. It was just a false alarm (battery) and everything was okay, but she's been talking about it for the last two days, so I know it really scared her.

So, I've come to the conclusion that although I won't be able to always save and protect her, I WILL ALWAYS be there to comfort her. Through the years she will have more injuries, and physical and emotional pain. It's part of life and I know she will (hopefully) learn from these situations and I won't always be able to stop them from happening or protect her.

Jenna - I promise I WILL always be there to comfort you and be there for you, to try to remind you how much you are loved and how truly special and great you are!