Re-Calculating Parenting

Am going through one of those parenting/life chapters where you get one (or more) wake-up calls to re-calculate parenting priorities. It's easy to get caught up in the details and stress about the small stuff (and I am a professional stressor-of-small-stuff).

However, when Kids Almost Drown all of a sudden you realize: good God, Ghandi, Allah "insert your deity here" -- that was life changing.

Like when you look away for a moment in a store and look back to the cart and your child is gone. Like when you go for a routine medical appointment and are told something's really wrong. Like when you see your child almost fall off the monkey bars and notice-only-then the broken glass in the sand underneath.

All these things make you re-calculate parenting. You make promises to yourself like: I'll make more time to read to them at night. I'll serve more vegetables. I'll work less this summer. As if these, personal promises, will stop all-and-any-future reality wake-up calls. (knowing they won't).

The thing about not stressing about the details of wake-up calls is that you re-play the damn moment over and over. If I had paid more attention at the pool. If I had only gone in sooner for that medical appointment. If I had been closer to the monkey bars instead of chatting with the other moms. The devil is in the details of parenting...