The World is a Dangerous Place

I never realized it until I had kids, but the world is a dangerous place. I think this is a little more true in East Asia, but I'm sure it holds true everywhere. Suddenly I see injury, illness, or expensive doctor visits around every corner. Even the street I have lived on for three years, which has always been quaint in a mindless urban frenzy type of way, is suddenly a gauntlet through which I would only walk my child if I had no other choice.

Vigilance, tiring vigilance is my only setting when we go out.

I have a 3 1/2 year old with no sense of danger. Did you ever hear about the time she happily ran towards an angry dog that was easily taller than her? She ran full speed at it, both of them barking all the way. Thank God for fences and instinctive daddy reflexes. Or what about the dog in the park whose whiskers she yanked? Fortunately, the creature was so stunned I had time to scoop up my curious little girl and carry her out of harms way. She will run towards cars, wild beasts, flames, and 26-story ledges. Even during these few precious weeks of spring breezes our balcony door stays shut...Courage and ignorance often look the same.

And if that wasn't enough, we have a newborn who has been given absolutely no means of self-defense. No means, that is, except his parents. Trash dropping on the sidewalk from 5 stories up, bicycles carrying mountains of precariously balanced furniture, cigarette ash being flicked every which way...what can little Trey do? Squint, cry, and bury his head in my shoulder, that's what.

It's funny- nothing in my world has changed except that it now contains 2 adorable little lives for which I am responsible. And that changes the whole world.