Worst Parent award winner

My daughter falls down a lot. She flips, flies, tumbles and takes naps in between. Her head must be heavier than I give it credit for because there seems to be a gravitational pull between her coconut and table corners, walls, dressers, etc.

The other day we are visiting the grandparents and my father in law goes to grab her from heading down the stairs. I say that she is really good with stairs and he looks at me like an idiot (ok he just looked at me like he normally does, but as I said). She cruises down the stairs, gets to the last one, trips, flips off the edge, hits her head on door jam. My father in law screams. Screams like when your watching a youtube video and someone is dancing stupid and you can't figure out why it has four million views and then whammo they get hit by a car. She looks up and can't figure out why people are screaming, shrugs her shoulders and heads off to go play, no whimper, no cry, like I said she falls down a lot.

My father in law says "See, I told you, you can do whatever you want at your house but here I'm going to help her down the stairs!" I shrug and tell him "That's fine, but you either have to be on her all the time or teach her how to handle things. If you choose to not let her on the stairs alone than God help you if she ever gets away from you. You can either baby proof the whole house and helicopter or help her learn how to navigate." My father in law looks at me again.

The point here is that we either have to figure out how to navigate our lives or protect ourselves from everything. If your a parent at some point you've got to let go. If you believe in God, at some point he lets go of you. If your a business owner, at some point the business needs to figure out that if you smack a two your old twice your weight your going to get knocked down and stepped on (when I refer to husky two year old's I speak of the government of course).

It is nice to be needed, but at some point we all want whatever we are putting our lives and love in to take off and be an individual. Don't go for needless risk, but let yourself fall down a little. Let yourself learn. Don't be afraid of the world, I can head up and down stairs like a champ now and feel pretty good about myself, thanks mom.

PS. I spent many hours working with her on how to get up and down stairs including one instance where she threw a fit mid way, flung her head back, hit one stair lower, bounced up in to the air but now upside down, and I caught her, mid air, upside down, by a leg. Oddly enough I never saw her throw another fit on the stairs again. She now scopes out the area, finds something soft, then screams, runs over to it and throws herself down in agony, seriously.