Safety First

In Jacob's early years I went to great lengths to keep him safe. I kept him safe from falling, from eating things he shouldn't, from injuring himself on the various tools that are always strewn around my house, from germs germs germs everywhere. I even tried to keep him safe from the people who thought he looked like a girl by dressing him in a shirt that said "I am a Boy."

A magazine comes in the mail to me regularly called One Step Ahead. Occaisionally I will flip through it and it's almost laughable the number of products available to help us keep our kids safe. Bumpers for beds, bumpers for doors, bumpers for fireplaces- there are several pages dedicated to bumpers alone. And there are endless other devices available for purchase to help us save the kids from just about every imaginable scenario.

Last summer I came home from an antique shopping excursion with an antique trunk. See it here. It was going to be my new toy chest. Now my then barely two yr old could help with cleaning up and storing his own mounds of toys and small odds and ends. The first time I opened it up I realized that it would probably decapitate Jacob if it slammed down while he was peering into the cavernous depths. Jacob has a really small neck- it wouldn't take much. If it slammed down while his hands were on the rim, he would surely lose them.

A trip to Home Depot later I brought home and installed a safety hinge that would slowly lower the lid down when we wanted to close it. There, I thought, this will keep my loves safe.

And then I saw this today:

Apparently Jacob really wanted to close the lid of the trunk. In his determination to close it, he bent the safety hinge. He is two and a half. He bent the safety hinge. How safe is that? This question leads to the greater question, how safe is he?

It comes to me that as a mother, I am powerless to keep my children well, safe, happy, healthy. In an instant, any thing, any worst nightmare could happen to my kids. All the safety hinges in the world won't keep my babes out of trouble, out of heartache, out of sickness, out of anything. All I can do is pray for Jacob and Kaylen. My God is so Big, so Strong, and So Mightly, there's nothing My God cannot do. And that, friends, is how I keep my kids safe.