Today my husband and I met up with a friend at a local museum to see an exhibit that's housed there through the end of the summer. We took my daughter along in her stroller, and she clapped and danced to the music playing in the exhibit. Later we took her to an outdoor area and let her run around and look at animals on a working farm. She seemed to have a great time, and we brought her home for her nap. She woke up and played with her train set, shouting "Choo choo!" and rearranging the houses and trees on the train table. She ran through the house, playing with toys, and on occasion when she'd run from one room to another, she'd do a run past me or my husband and climb up onto one of our laps and give us a big hug before going back to her playing. At one point as she was hugging me, she said "Loooove you!" before sliding down onto the floor to run back to her toys. I sat there for a moment, watching her look back at me with a huge grin on her face as she hugged a toy bunny and thought "Why was I so afraid of this?".
I'm always afraid of the unknown. I'm afraid when I can't plan, can't anticipate what's going to happen, can't get ahead of the unexpected. There were a million things about bringing a baby into our lives that scared me to death. There were a million things about being a parent that scared me. There was so much to be afraid of that I never had a chance to think about all of the things that wouldn't be scary. And, if I'm being honest, even the scary things weren't all that scary. I totally resent having to get up at 6:30 every morning, and I don't love having to work a day around nap time, but the big things I was afraid of weren't really worth being afraid of. The payoffs you get outweigh the things to fear, and I wish I had known that.
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