My kids are safe, my kids are safe

I feel bad because I let my son stay home today, even though there is nothing physically wrong with him. Now, some people would say I was weak because I got an hour's sleep last night, need a bath and didn't want to face the world, but that isn't it.

He cried.

Surely a parent, a mother understands. He has been having a problem with another kid in another classroom, one I have complained about loudly to no avail. Today, facing this kid was just one more than he could deal with, and he said to me with tears swimming in his huge blue eyes "You sure I'll be ok?"

So of course I gave in. I don't always. Usually he gets weepy before school and we call this 'school nervousness' and he knows it will pass when he gets there. And it always does. But something about his little face this morning just got to me in that place where all mothers have an unprotected set of balls inside them and every tear is a knee in our groin, you know what I mean?

Maybe it has to do with a dream my daughter had last night...she said she dreamt that she and her brother and sister were outside playing alone (something I never let them do) and a car drove up and some men got out and tried to take them. She says she yelled to her sibs to run, but her sister couldn't get away and the bad people took her. She came out here in tears last night and made me promise never to leave them waiting for me alone anywhere. I never do and reminded her of that, and gave her the usual faire about how no one would ever get to them as long as I lived, and shhh now baby, go to sleep. Mommy's here and it will all be ok.

But of course, maybe it won't be. The truth is...well, the truth is something I feel so afraid of I can't even write it. I am a hyper-vigilant mother...I never leave my kids alone anywhere. I take no chances with their lives. And still there is this miserable little bully at school who keeps bugging my son, and there are people out there who are looking for vulnerable, lonely kids to prey on. Disease could strike...seizures and bio-chem disorders already have.

We do the very best we can to make them as safe as they can possibly be and worry all the time it isn't safe enough, and feel guilty for feeling like liars when we tell them how safe they are when we soothe away a nightmare. I say it like a mantra (mykidsaresafemykidsaresafemykidsaresafe). So keeping my son home today in the face of his fear and tears is maybe ok. I figure I owe him that.