Protecting James

From well before James was born, I have had the feeling that I would sacrifice my own well being in order to keep him safe from any harm. Well, today I proved myself right.

Mike and I took James to the park this morning. He was holding my hands, walking around, grabbing, touching, and tasting everything, when I decided that it would be fun to take him on a slide. I spotted a slide made up of rolling metal tubes, sat down at the top, settled James in my lap, and pushed off. There was only one problem. I forgot about the rather slick pair of bike shorts that I wearing.

Halfway down, I realized that we were going too fast. I had to do something. When we reached the end of the slide, I did the only thing I could think of. I planted my feet on the ground and stood up. This would have worked perfectly if it weren't for James. His 20+ pounds made me a lot more front heavy than I was expecting. The moment I stood up, I had the horrible realization that I was about to fall flat on my face, and what was worse, I was going to land on top of James.

Somehow in the split second between this moment of horror and landing on the ground, I managed to move James from the center of my body to my far right side, plopping him gently facedown onto the ground. I then threw myself to the left, landing hard on my side, but well away from James. After 20 seconds of stunned crying, James was completely fine. I, on the other hand, had large, painful red marks on my right hand and left calf, and a scrape on my left knee. But, I didn't care.

James was completely unharmed and that is all that matters.