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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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Half a Second Too Late

Sep 13 20 Comments

I recently joined the ranks of mothers who were just half a second too late.

It’s not that I was careless or inattentive or even distracted in that moment; it’s just that I was being a human, and with humanity comes margin for error. That margin is fine when we’re talking about political polls or scientific calculations. But when we’re talking about my own kid’s safety, the distance between perfection and reality suddenly changes from normal margin to steep drop-off.

***

Selah is standing in the bathtub, and I try to be clear and firm that we only sit in the tub. She does not listen. I’m sitting next to her, reading my book, and I have just three more sentences to go before the end of the chapter. But I think, rightly, You will never forgive yourself if something happens in the next 15 seconds, all because you just had to finish a few lines.

I put the book down and sit Selah down too, letting her play for a few more minutes, splashing water and grabbing at bubbles. I wash her hair and her body and then help her up, supporting her the whole time, so I can rinse the soap from her limbs before she gets out. I pour the warm water down her neck, across her tiny shoulders, over her belly and down her legs. I lift her out of the tub and set her gently on the memory-foam bath mat, reaching above her head to grab a towel.

In that half-second space of time, when she is under me but just out of reach, she takes off running, leaving the bath mat and reaching the tile. Her feet slip out from under her and I watch desperately as her head hits the ground with a deafening crack. My arms are already reaching out for her, trying to save her before she hits the ground, but I am not fast enough.

I scoop her up before she’s even realized what has happened, letting her wet limbs wrap themselves around my waist, soaking my shirt. She begins to wail as I place her tan bear towel around her shoulders. I cradle her against my chest, listening as her shrieks turns to whimpers, and then she is quiet, safe.

As we sit there together on the closed lid of the toilet—gently rocking back and forth, back and forth—I see not Selah’s accident looping through my mind, but thousands of other accidents that thousands of other moms were half a second too late to stop. I have reached another mommy milestone, one I have dreaded.

Like many of these mothers who have gone before me, I whip out my phone and consult Dr. Google: What are the symptoms of a concussion in a toddler? Vomiting, dizziness, headache, lethargy or sleepiness, inability to focus eyes, irritability. I make sure Selah’s eyes are open, that she is not getting sleepy.

And also like many of these mothers who have gone before me, I call my own mom.

She doesn’t answer the phone, so I take Selah into her bedroom. I sit her up on the changing table, brushing her hair gently, watching her for signs of dizziness, but she immediately picks up her tiny toys, shouting baby babble at them and then looking to me for a response. I feel a slight bump forming where her skull met the tile, and I touch it gently to see if she’ll respond. She doesn’t seem to notice the pressure.

I dress Selah and then we go downstairs, and when I set her down, she trots off to play in her kitchen. She is walking a straight line. My phone rings, and relief courses through my body when I see “Mom” on the screen. I swipe right, and hearing my mom’s voice, I lean back against the living room wall and sink to the hardwood floor. I tell her, in the space of a single breath, that Selah is okay and I’m okay but she hit her head really hard on the bathroom floor and I was only half a second too late and it was so horrible and do you think she has a concussion?

I watch as Selah squats down, crouched so low that her butt almost touches the floor. She is inspecting two felt strawberries, and I ask, “Surely she would topple over if she had a concussion?”

After talking with my mom, I consult Selah’s pediatrician and a friend who is a nurse, and we all decide Selah is fine. She is resilient. She probably doesn’t even remember what happened.

But I do.

***

My child is okay, but I can’t stop asking the question, What if, what if, what if?

What if she’d hit her head just a bit harder and lost consciousness?

What if her skin had split open and blood had come pouring out?

What if the symptoms are delayed, and I put her down for a nap only to find her unresponsive hours later?

What if I could have prevented it?

What I’m really asking is this: What if I’m a bad mom?

My worst fear is that something horrible would happen to my child on my watch, or worse, that somehow I would cause it. This is the definition of a bad mom, right? Someone who doesn’t love her child deeply enough to watch him or her carefully enough to prevent the preventable.

I know this is a lie. I also know this is also how helicopter parents are born.

For the most part, I fight my instinct to hover. I try to let Selah do her own thing–explore, run, fall down, scrape her knees. She’s learning cause and effect, safe and dangerous, wise and not wise. I don’t rush over at every little tumble she takes. I don’t gasp and scare her every time she trips. I don’t comfort and coddle until I see she’s clearly upset or hurt.

But in these moments when it goes wrong, when I feel like I should have done better or been more prepared or prevented it altogether, I hoist myself on the hook and let the guilt wash over me like ice-cold water.

***

As I sat there with Selah, going through the motions of this mommy milestone, I realized that perhaps part of getting past it is facing down the guilt and fear and shame of not being perfect.

Maybe this milestone is less about the scary thing that happened to my daughter and more about how I define myself as a mother: Not perfect but human. Not careless but still fallible. Not thoughtless but loving. Not bad but good.

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Filed Under: Motherhood Tagged With: freedom, motherhood, parenting, perfection, perfectionism

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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