March 3, 2016

You know how you live your life day in and day out thinking about all the little things that annoy the crap out of you?  Why can’t it all just be simpler?  Why me?  And then something actually scares the crap out of you and you wake up to the realization that you are blessed beyond measure.

Tonight Jeremy is my hero.  I’m the one that handles the little urgencies and emergencies.  Where are SJ’s socks?  Did you forget her diaper cream?  Who’s watching her tomorrow?  But Jeremy is the one who Selah June trusts with all her heart and clings to when she’s hurting and frightened.  Tonight I saw my baby and my husband covered in blood.  She got into the bathroom drawer and grabbed a spare razor.  Jeremy tried to take it from her, and she grabbed onto it and tried to keep it from him.  You can fill in the rest.

She wouldn’t let me see it.  She wouldn’t let me wipe it or wrap it.  She yanked multiple band-aids off.  I got more and more nauseous.  He just tried to distract her, switched her to his other hip so that she had to grab onto his shoulder with her cut little finger, and tricked her into stopping the bleed.  And then he took her outside to kick the ball in the yard even though the weather was turning for the worse.  And then he sang to her as they watched “Let It Go” on YouTube.  And then they snuggled while she drank the rest of her bottle and watched some Elmo videos.

I just busied myself cleaning up the bathroom and the kitchen while my stomach did somersaults.  I was a little hurt that she didn’t want anything to do with me, but I was more overwhelmed by the feeling that I would gladly suffer a thousand razor cuts than see her suffer one more.  And I wouldn’t trade my husband, my partner in life and parenthood, for anything in the world.