The middle had yet another appointment for a filling today after school. She handles it like a trooper while mama sits on the edge of her seat, watching her fingers on her blankie and her breath rising in her belly for signs that something hurts. Is this the definition of a helicopter mom? I don’t care. I’m never not going to sit on the edge of my seat while my kids do hard things. So there.
Our dentist is amazing and despite the fact that we’ve had to do this enough times to know it’s not the most comfortable or fun experience, she hasn’t had any discomfort so dramatic as to affect her bravery for the next appointment. High on the list of uncomfortable parts of the experience is the drill. When it comes to that part the dentist always tells her to raise her hand if it hurts. She usually raises her hand, and he usually adds to the numbing to be safe, but based on her body language we are all pretty sure that it’s more startling than painful when she raises her hand.
Since there’s not enough numbing medicine in the world to make the drill less startling, the dental assistant reached out and held her raised hand so she could squeeze it when she needed to. For the rest of the time, while also managing to continue the suction and hand the dentist tools, she held Harper’s hand.
I have anxiety. And as far as I can tell one of the major fuels of my anxiety fire is the idea that I need to be in control of things. For some reason I operate from the intrinsic idea that the only way I can know for sure everything will be okay is if I am in control of it. I haven’t quite figure out how to rewrite that narrative in my brain, but I’m working on it.
It helps to remember that the world is full of good people who will hold my children’s hands when I can’t.