Running with scissors

In life, your parents have taught you to be careful, to sit and eat without making too much of a mess, to dress yourself, to be kind and polite and all the other basics of life but have your ever wondered about the process? How much work went into teaching you to hold your fork right? Which shoe goes on which foot? For every day I spend as a parents I become more and more grateful for my mother and for the enormous work she put into raising me. True that it takes a village to raise a child but I certainly do not see the mayor coming by to help change diapers, or the merchant cleaning spilled milk off my kitchenfloor or the town idiot wrestling my toddler into his jammies. And while teaching all the basics you also have to remember the safety-dance. Fire is hot, fingers stuck in the door hurts, the toilet is not a source of water and so on. It's a constant race to keep up with them, what will they think of now? and more importantly, how do I prevent it and stay 2 steps ahead of them? Needless to say, my son is always covered in bruises, sometimes I suspect people of thinking that I beat him, I promise, I don't - there is no need to, he is perfectly capable of causing injury to himself.
When he climbs onto the officechair and from there tries to get onto the computer-table I fear the chair is gonna slip from under him and often it does, I brace myself for the fall and cross my fingers, hoping that this time he'll learn but does he? It hasn't happened yet.
When he slams the door on his fingers I comfort him and ask him if that hurt and please not to do it again, I turn my back and he goes over and does it again. Sometimes I wonder if one of the many falls he's taken has caused permanent damage.
Life brings you scars, bumps and bruises and our parents did one hell of a job raising us and now it's our turn, I'm sure all my children will survive, more or less intact and when it's their turn I will rest on my laurels, offer advice when asked and just ENJOY that: "Been there, done that!"