The Worrier

It's time to come clean on a couple things.

First of all, I'm a worrier. Have been for as long as I can remember.

My sis would leave the house to walk the dog in high school and after about 10 min my mind would start cooking up impossible scenarios. With 20 min passed I'd be fearing the worst and wondering when I should alert my mom and call the authorities.

Needless to say she always returned unharmed, but the worry came back again next time she walked out the door.

I've been caught countless times with my hand on hubby's back in the middle of the night, checking to be sure he is still breathing (he laughs at me). And if Stella hops down from bed and disappears, I'm convinced she is getting sick downstairs (this one is actually true more often than not).

It is one of the (if not the) worst character flaw of mine. It fills me with an anxiety I am ordinarily without. It is completely unproductive, and the more I try to stop it, the worse it is.

Don't you worry, it doesn't consume me. Rereading that, it sounds like an ad for anti-depressant meds. It isn't a constant state, happens most often at night and I realize it is irrational. That said, as I'm sure you can imagine, adding Ben into the mix hasn't done much to calm me down.

Like I said, I mostly worry at night. In the light of day (thankfully) these concerns seem as ridiculous as they probably are. But at night I now find myself losing sleep over Ben. Mostly with thoughts of him getting stuck somehow in his crib and not being able to breathe.

There. I said it.

At this point the second confession becomes more relevant: Ben is a tummy sleeper. A full post on this will follow but for now, know he is sleeping on his tummy. Though I had the same sleepless nights when he was sleeping upright in his swing too, just now they seem more valid.

And just like Nancy' Reagan's "This is Your Brain..." campaign scared me from trying any fun drugs in high school/college, the SIDS "Back to Sleep" message haunts me while I try to sleep at night.

Statistically speaking, odds are in his favor. 1 in 1,1500 babies die of SIDS and from what I can tell it is most often in homes with young, poor moms who didn't have good prenatal care, smoke in the baby's bedroom, etc. However you can't aattibute all the cases to those scenarios and regardless of who you are, it does happen.

So now it is 2am (or 3, 4 or 5am) and I am staring at the monitor, watching Ben's back for signs of breathing (when we were in the same room, I was actually getting up several times a night to touch him). Even writng this is now I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it is what it is.

Perhaps I should be grateful that I've contained the worry to this alone, rather than being overwhelmed by every possible scenario. Regardless, it needs to stop because I'm driving myself crazy and missing out on the success tied to longer nights of uninturrupted sleep from the little guy.

Surely some amount of worrying is to be expected and comes with the territory. But as is the case with most things in life, balance is key. We will all be better for it in the end.

And then I can get busy worrying about Ben falling off his bike and getting good grades...