But I didn't know it until I had my first grandchild -- a beautiful baby girl. I tried to do my motherly duty and give my daughter the sage advice I had learned the hard way over the years of raising my own two children.Twelve years ago, I let Audrie fall asleep on my chest and then gently placed her on her stomach in her crib.
"Mother! They don't lay babies on their stomachs anymore!" My daughter corrected me. "They might suffocate!"
Dear Lord, forgive me for almost suffocating my children hundreds of times when they were babies.
I prided myself on the fact that my two children started sleeping through the night at a fairly early age, and it pained me to see Vanessa so exhausted night after night after night of little sleep because her three babies (when they each were babies & the third one still is) kept waking up wanting to nurse. I told her to give them a little rice cereal so they'll feel satisfied and sleep longer so she could rest.
"Mother! They don't feed babies any food other than breast milk or formula until they're at least six months old or they could develop allergies!"
Dear Lord, forgive me for developing allergies in my children for feeding them baby cereal at too young of an age.
Car seats for babies and small children were just coming into existence when my kids were little, and it wasn't a law back then, so my kids were exposed to countless hours of riding unrestrained in vehicles. Van sometimes stood tucked behind his Daddy's shoulder while his daddy drove 70 mph down the highway. My toddler son even opened the pickup door while riding with his PaPa Van Cleve on I-35 on the way to Laredo. I still shiver when I think about that. I've lost count the times my children rode in the back of the pickup around town and in the pasture. And I learned well after the fact that Uncle Jimmy let Van drive his pickup and trailer to Pearsall, thirty miles away, and the boy was only 10 or 11 years old!
Dear Lord, forgive me for letting my children go ANYWHERE with their father and uncle and grandfather in a pickup.
It's a wonder my children weren't traumatized by what I made them wear.
I never realized life was so dangerous for my children.
- I didn't walk out into the street and watch them walk to their grandparents' house 50 yards from our house. It's a wonder they weren't kidnapped!
- Until they got their driver's license, I made them walk to junior high [it's now called middle school] and high school three blocks away. They could've been run over!
- I let them play out in the 40 acres behind the house. I don't know why they weren't bit by a rattlesnake!
- Van fell off the roof several times putting up Christmas lights and was electrocuted once as he stapled into the wire about the time Vanessa plugged the lights in. They didn't tell me this until after they went to college.
- They rode horses and worked with big 4-H show calves, and stepped in manure in the pens and were scratched by feral cats in the barn, and also swung like Tarzan off the tall stacks of feed with ropes attached to the rafters. They could've broken bones [oh yeah, Van did break his arm three times falling off a horse] or contracted some deadly disease out there!
Dear Lord, forgive me for raising my children in such a dangerous environment. Thank you for keeping them safe in spite of my ignorance.
Little August
Dear Lord, please don't let this errant underwire sticking out of my bra stab him.
I'm so glad my own children survived their dangerous childhood. I'm surprised how healthy and strong and happy they look! They're hiding their suffering well.
Vanessa & Van
And here are my grandkids, whom I'm trying to be safer with.
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| Audrie, Finn & August
I think I just butchered that last sentence grammatically. Is it 'with whom I'm trying to be safer' or is it okay to write it like we speak it: 'who I'm trying to be safer with' or what?! I can't even trust myself to be safe with grammar! That even sounds like a nickname for grandma! Ol' Grammar Van Cleve.
Okay, I'll stop now.
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