Heart Attack Moments

I've written before on the blog about how having a child is like having your heart walking around outside your body.  While it's the greatest love you can experience, it also produces the greatest vulnerability.

That's just par for the course, but then there are those (thankfully) rare moments, which I call "heart attack moments," where it really hits home how vulnerable you are, and how vulnerable your child is to the dangers of the world, and how much you love him or her.

In moments like these, something happens that scares you half to death and you are confronted in an immediate, very real way with your worst fears about losing your child.

My Achilles Heel

Most of my parenting commentary revolves around the happy side effects of parenting - the unparalleled joy it brings, the funny moments, the thrilling life changes.

But there is one thing about parenthood that isn't always happy. In fact, that one thing is more difficult than just about anything in the world.

And that is knowing that your heart is gone, that it is walking freely in this world in the form of a beautiful little person, that you have no control over it anymore.  This can be the source of your greatest joy and also of your greatest sorrow.

My little girl is my Achilles heel.

Sleeping beauty, Nov. 2011