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How much to hover?

When I was four or five, I fell off the back end of a slide. In my mind, I was towering above the ground, having climbed to a very top of the steps, before falling, face-down, to the ground. Luckily, I wasn't seriously hurt. Nothing was broken and no stitches required, but I did hurt my lip. On my bottom lip I can still feel the small knot of scar tissue in the center, remnants of my trauma. An apparently permanent memento of that afternoon at the park.

I don't remember what caused the fall. I just remember one second being at the top, and the next second eating dirt.

Years later, I'd visit that same park and realize that the super-high slide of my mind was actually a small kiddie slide. Possibly four feet high. How different it seemed now. How less ominous of a threat: yet still, high enough to cause so many tears and my knot scar.

It's hard to forget that moment, especially as we trail behind Jolie zipping around our playground, climbing and scaling everything in sight. Of course we are there, spotting her, but at some point, she'll be on her own. How to deal? We can't always be there.

It's that feeling of helplessness that gets me. We can't always be there to protect her from accidents or falls. We can't predict the future and know that this day, she'll slip on the step or the monkey bars or the climbing wall.

I wish I could. Protect her from the permanent scars that live on in the form of knots on bottom lips.

Letting her grow up is hard. I guess all we can do is be there when we can, and teach her how to be safe and understand her limits. Even on kiddie slides.