Does the Worry Ever End?

I don’t think it is possible to be a parent and not spend some sleepless nights at some point, worrying about your kids. You worry about SIDs when they are infants. You worry about injuries when they are toddlers. You worry about school and relationships during the preteens. You worry about driving and drugs during the teenage years. You worry about ‘adulting’ during the early adult years. It never seems to end.

And then you have grandchildren…and it starts all over again. I spent two separate weeks in North Carolina recently visiting my son, daughter-in-law and baby grandson. Zander recently went through a double hernia repair at the wee age of 2 months. I flew out a week after the surgery to pretty much just hold him as needed. It was a huge sacrifice to be off work to hold a baby. I’ve decided to be much more sacrificial for the rest of the year.

On one of the days, Zander fell asleep in my arms, so I placed him in his swing. The new swings are much more high-tech than those I used for the boys which only moved in one direction and with limited speed options. If you were lucky, it might play one tune over and over. The new swings go in several directions…with a mobile attached…and entire musical genres. I must say…he seems to love it or at least enjoy sleeping in it….which is when I determined that I’m truly neurotic.

I settled Zander into the swing and pushed the speed to ‘2’. I watched him sway side to side and then realized that my eyes couldn’t keep up with the movement. I couldn’t see him breath…which created this odd need to stop the swing, feel his chest, almost wake him up and start the cycle all over again. Why I thought he would suddenly stop breathing while he was swinging is where normal worry stops and actual neurosis begins.

I repeated that cycle at least four times. Ok…maybe 5…but I got really good at it and didn’t wake him up. Ok..maybe once I did. But he went back to sleep.

So…when does the worry stop?  Apparently, that answer is…never. It only changes to include more people. I have now added a baby to my daily prayer list, which already includes my boys, my husband, my daughter-in-law, my father, my siblings, my cousins, my nieces and nephews, my friends, my co-workers, our world and everything else that keeps me awake at night. Guess who gets the most airtime (or is that prayer time?) however? Yep, an inverse relationship. The smallest party gets the most attention. Maybe that’s just the way we are designed…to worry about the weakest among us until they can care for themselves.

So…neurotic or not, I will probably still stop the swing occasionally and hold my breath until I see him take his…any maybe that’s ok.

For those of you who know me, however, if I’m still doing this when he’s twenty…get me help.