Flashback 1984: It’s a bright sunshiny day and the dad decides to give mommy a break by taking their two year old daughter out for a while. He takes a turn a little too sharply, and not realizing that he forgot to secure the car seat in with the seat belt, is momentarily caught off guard when he hears the loud thump of the car seat falling face first into the floor board. The toddler’s surprised cries soon follow and the daddy pulls over to pick up his crying daughter and buckle the seat in this time.  When he picks up the seat and turns it towards him he is thrown into a panic by the sight of the red chunky liquid he sees dribbling down his daughter’s chin as she wails in distress.  He quickly takes the child out of the seat and holds her close thinking she had chewed through her tongue or something worse. When she is sufficiently soothed he looks down to inspect her injuries, thinking his wife is gonna kill him, and hoping the baby is not permanently damaged he pats her down checking for other booboos. Something he does amuses the child, she giggles, and tries to thrust a red jelly bean into her daddy’s mouth. Relief floods through him as he looks around and sees the rest of the jelly beans strewn in the van. The relief he felt was indescribable and he laughs about it now. This is just one story my dad has shared with me about the joys of parenthood, the first of many minor mistakes of which I can totally relate now that I am grown with children of my own. We have this great responsibility to care for these little individuals that God has trusted us with and sometimes we mess up, look around to see if anyone else saw that, and wonder how they will survive with us as their parents. My parents raised me to view the world with humor and forgiveness. I have some amazing experiences that serve as a guide as I do my best raising my kids thanks to them. So to all the breast feeding mothers who have dropped a cell phone on their baby’s head while nursing. To all the parents who left a razor within the child’s reach and had to learn first aid for razor cuts on the tongue, or ever had to take a daughter to get a corrective hair cut after she played beauty salon with scissors that you forgot to put away. To anyone who ever had to figure out how to retrieve a tiny toy from a youngsters nose, don’t be too hard on yourself, you’ll get better with time. They’ll be fine despite your human errors and one day together you’ll all sit back and have a good laugh.