I don’t know what it is about being a Mom that makes visions of doom and gloom follow any thought you have about doing something with your children. Case in point, today, as I was driving to work in the early dawn hours, I was thinking of the plane ride that we would be taking to El Salvador. I was hoping that maybe we’d get the seats in the front that have a slightly larger leg space than the rest of the seating. It’s usually the place next to the door. Immediately after this thought ran through my head, I saw a vision of the door flying open (I think this happened over Hawaii a decade or so ago) and Isaiah, who wouldn’t be in a seat being ripped out of the door. Typically, these thoughts are followed by rescue scenarios – I know, I’d grab a parachute and then jump out after him, once I caught up to him, which should be quick as I only way a gizzillion pounds more than he does, I’d put the chute on and save us! This time I stopped myself with the question – oh my god! Why are you even thinking this? I then began to reminisce about how when Elijah was first born, I’d have these same little scenarios every 5 minutes or so. Deciding whether to run the yellow light was accompanied by an accident scene in which I would have to drag my torso (my legs were gone, trapped, something) back to Elijah where I would try to comfort him until help arrived and I could tell someone to call Jose. I soon realized that the 90% of my brain that I wasn’t using – that part that I had assumed held all the histories of my past lives – actually was there for creating nightmare scenarios in which my children were in danger and I had to find a way to save them. Fortunately, this morning I was soon distracted by the fact that Hardees pork chop biscuit has returned (not the grilled one that sucks but the really good fried one!!) and I happily worked at hardening my arteries instead of working my way through a death scenario.
Logically, I realize that these little visions are probably nature’s way of protecting children – preventing mothers from blindly saying sure, go ahead and climb up on the roof, that seems fine – it’s solid. It’s these visions that run through our mind when a dad has his child perched on his knee mowing the yard; or when the dad sends the child into the house to get the sharp knife and hurry back. Now, that doesn’t mean that dad’s don’t have the gene / ability for the visions. Jose has found a few visions himself – usually involving water – and true, most of the time he’s asleep – but it’s a step in the right direction.
By and large these visions have been my least favorite part of motherhood. There’s nothing like having a vision pop into your head at 2:00 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep because you have to figure a way to rescue the child – the evil scene playing over and over in your head without ceasing – I don’t know if it gets better when the kids get older – though I truly doubt it – it’s worse – because you’ll have those scenarios and you won’t be there to save your child from whatever bad thing has happened. And as I type, I am thinking – it’s a bit of a shocker that you’re able to be so casual about your kids in general if you have all these nasty death /injury images floating about in your head – though, I’m thinking that nothing they have asked to do – or that we have done – is really as bad as what I’ve seen in my head. Though don’t kid yourself, images of death and dismemberment are in my head the entire time I’m on the top ½ of the wild mouse – and if it weren’t for the wonderful lawsuit that would result from my death on that ride, I probably wouldn’t ride it – that and the fact that Elijah can’t ride without and adult and jose doesn’t like it.
