Beth, at So the Fish Said had a post today that really summed up one of the many reasons this baby-swinging thing is really laying heavy on my mind. 

As a mother, on the occasions when I have inadvertently placed my child in danger or unintentionally caused him pain, the images and the feeling of breathless momentary terror have lingered so vividly that I cannot imagine willfully doing something so horrifying.

There are two of these newsreels that I play in my head and that never cease to clutch at my heart and stop my breath.  The first is the day Harry fell out of the shopping cart.  I don’t want to relive this by writing it over, but I can tell you I still hear that sickening thud.  I still remember snatching him from Kris and holding him, feeling him all over, watching him anxiously for signs that he had somehow broken his shoulder or damaged his brain in the fall, and the quick realization that I should have checked to be sure the strap was secure.  But I was distracted by shoes.  Shoes, for crying out loud.

The second was more recent, and more directly my fault.  A couple weekends ago, we were visiting with Kris’s parents and were preparing for an outing.  I poured myself a travel mug of coffee, fresh-brewed and scalding hot.  My father-in-law had singed his tongue on it not a few minutes before.  I put the mug on the coffee table for two minutes to find something we needed to bring.  I cannot even remember now what it was.  Two minutes, I found out with graphic certainty, is ample time for a quick and inquisitive toddler to pull steaming hot coffee down on his chest.

Coffee poured out of the drinking spout down Harry’s chest from his armpit to his hip.  At first he was too shocked to scream, all he could do is wave his hands, his face contorted in silent agony.  When he finally caught his breath, he wailed, clutching at his burned chest as I whipped the still-steaming onsie off of him.  He was still screaming pitifully as we tried to put cold clothes and cold packs on his tiny writhing form, his chest bright red and blistering.  I could barely breathe as I fumbled for the card with the 24-hour nurses line, and the number of the urgent care center.  I kept saying “So sorry, baby, Mommy’s fault, Mommy’s fault” as if Harry could absolve me, as if he even knew that my carelessness had caused his pain.  It was the single most miserable moment of my life.

Harry has nothing to show for the ordeal but a few little pink scars that will probably fade by his second birthday.  They won’t last nearly as long as the scars on my heart.  That he has all but forgotten the incident, that he still loves me and runs to me when he is sad or hurt, is a rather astringent balm.  The innocent trust is almost as painful as it is healing.   How easy it is to break that faith, how quickly forgiven by him, how impossible to forgive myself.  

I keep telling myself that is how it should be.  But it weighs hard.