So, after the disaster that ensued after trying to bake cookies with Makayla, we decided that an evening of her riding her bike would be a good way to deal with our disappointment. Honestly, I wasn’t disappointed or surprised since my baking abilities are equivalent to that of a squash, but Makayla was devastated that Matt’s cookies ended up resembling mashed potatoes and tasted like earwax. So I wrapped her up in her child safety devices and jogged behind her as she rode her bike up and down the sidewalk. My biggest fear in the entire world is having some pedophile snatch one of my offspring and I am quite ridiculous, according to most, when it comes to ensuring that a pedophile is never given the opportunity to steal them. So I jogged behind her as she rode her bike, and she fell twice. I treated each experience as if Hiroshima had just happened and was horrified to think of my child having her face maimed by the bicycle chain, which has happened to me on two separate occasions. I admit, my behavior was extreme and ridiculous. The first fall, she somehow managed to land head first onto the concrete and I was thankful that I was thoughtful enough to not only require she wear wrist, elbow, and knee protectors, but a head protector as well. She was scared by the fall and it took a bit of coaxing to get her back onto her bike but she did and then flew off like lightning, enjoying the feel of speeding on her bike, only to break suddenly and skid across the sidewalk. The second time she fell, she shooed me away, as I tried to inspect her for internal injuries. Matt came home after we had been outside for nearly an hour, and tried to show me the way Makayla leaned to the side as she rode her bike. By then, I was sitting on the back of his truck, having allowed Makayla to venture four houses down without her mother running after her with arms around her in the event she plummeted to the ground at any second, or a pedophile jumped out from a bush. Matt was highly annoyed that I refused to watch him and refused to take my eyes off Makayla for a single second.
“Just come do your demonstration over here, so I can keep an eye on the both of you,” I said, motioning for him to come from behind my back, to the direction where Makayla was riding.
He said he’d tell me later and started unloading his car. I knew I had annoyed him but wasn’t too worried about it. A conversation about a child who has bad habits in bike riding can be discussed at any time. A child being snatched by a pedophile can happen in the three minutes you look away. Matt determined that I was “coddling” Makayla and let me know that I just needed to let her be a kid. This idea was only further influenced when the next door neighbor’s boyfriend pulled up in his truck. Makayla stopped her bike, came next to my side, and said, “I will wait until he is inside of his house because I don’t even know that guy.” She watched him as he got out of his truck, went into the garage, and closed the garage door.
“Do you think it’s safe to ride past now?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” I told her.
She rode to the fourth house, turned around, and let Matt and I know, “That guy will probably steal me. That’s why I had to wait until he was gone.”
“He probably wouldn’t, but you don’t know him, so you never know,” I told her, “He probably wouldn’t, but he might, so it’s best to stay near Mommy if someone you don’t know comes around.”
It’s not like Makayla has zero social skills.
“I’m still shy,” she informed Matt and I earlier. But she will warm up to someone who I am with within a few minutes. She is polite and sweet to people, very respectful. As a couple walked down the street earlier, she told them “hello,” and then said, “I still want to wait until they are gone before I ride my bike down there. I don’t know those people.”
Am I overprotective? I have had most people tell me I am. But I don’t care. It’s not like a have a thirty year old who is overly wary of people they don’t know. I have a six year old little girl, who would be defenseless in the event some freak tried to snatch her. At the park, if an adult she doesn’t know starts lurking around, she’ll come straight to my side until or unless I tell her I think the person is safe. If someone at the grocery line engages her in conversation, she’ll motion for me to come down to her level and whisper in my ear, “Is it OK to talk to him/her?” 99% of the time, people like that are telling her what a good girl she is, or how cute she is, and I allow these conversations to take place. I remember one time, when she was four, some freak behind us told her, “You’re really sexy, just like you’re mommy.” When she asked if she was allowed to speak to this person, I told her no, put her in front of me, and stood facing this person until we checked out, as he wiggled his tongue at me and winked. I then had a manager walk us to our truck. On another occasion, Makayla and I were walking into Wal-Mart, and some dude who was sitting on a bench at the front of the store told me what a beautiful child I had and let me know he loved children. I was automatically alarmed because I feel like a normal human male would not say such a disturbing thing to a little girl’s mother. As Makayla and I shopped, every time I looked back, he was there. He followed us aisle to aisle until I picked up a five year old Makayla, put her in the back of the basket, and continued shopping. I alerted an employee of the situation and as the employee went to get a manager, the weird dude tried talking to me again.
“I have never seen such a beautiful child,” he said, “I’ve always wanted kids.”
I refused to say a word to this person, picked up Makayla, left my groceries, and went to the front to get a manager. Sadly, in my hasty retreat, I left my wallet in the cart and never saw it again. That evening, I carried Makayla to the car as two managers escorted me. After the viewing of the video, the man received his own picture posted in Wal-Mart, alerting anyone who saw him to report him to managers, as he had been banned.
Even before these atrocious people further perpetuated my fear that lunatics are everywhere, I have always been extremely careful about my kids. When they were babies, if I had to reach over and get a thing of meat at the store, I’d keep one hand on their stomachs in the event someone tried to snatch them out of their carseat that was in the front of the basket, even though they were strapped in. When we go to crowded places like Six Flags, I keep my kids on one of those child leash things in the event some pedophile tries to run by and snatch them. Mommy dearest has a large clip attached to her own leash device so in the event a pedophile attempted to run by and snatch my children, they would be dragging me along with them. That’s right people. In large crowds, I use metal devices to attach myself to my children and still insist they hold my hand. When the kids play at the park, I follow them around instead of sitting on the bench, to make all around me aware that there is a ninja adult ready to defend their lives. If Makayla climbs up the jungle gym to go down a slide, I go with her. If she runs from the slide to go to a swing, I run after her. I don’t leave the kids with sitters. I don’t let them play outside unless I am literally RIGHT there. And I have had people tell me, “Honestly Jess, what’s the worst that can happen? The chances of someone kidnapping them are slim to none.”
So what? The fear, agony, terror, screaming for their mommy while some freak brutalizes them before he slits their throats and throws them in a ditch is more than enough motivation for me to be what some have called, “the helicopter mommy.” I could understand if I was treating teenagers like this. But my children are six and three. I honestly don’t see a problem with this.
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