The road to rampant paranoia

As a new parent you quickly become accustomed to rampant paranoia. Or is that just me? I remember the first time I took my girl out of the house. We were out of cat food and she was not quite a week old. I thought every driver on the road was going to t-bone me and that every person in the store that looked at her wanted to steal and/or maim her. I hugged her so close to me I was probably squishing the poor dear but she was a good sport about it. She is usually pretty calm about that sort of thing and gives me the stink eye or just sighs at me. What a good baby. 

Just recently my daughter started in day care (heaven help me). The paranoia of the parent has been taken to entirely new extremes due to this. The day care I have her in is on a military base complete with gates, guards, men with guns, the whole nine yards. I had gone out to pick up a few groceries on her first day and on the way back I got a case of the crazies. What if the base is under lock down and I can't get to her! What if someone went in with a gun and is taking the kids hostage! What if we are under nuclear attack and she gets stuck there! 

I kid you not, those were the thoughts that went through my head and I am a really, really chill person. It was utterly ridiculous. 

Of course I walked in to pick her up and she was just fine. She had dozed off while playing with some toy and had pulled her shirt up over her head like the cute little turd she is. 

The moral of my story? Just calm down. Take a deep breath. It's all going to be alright. By letting things get out of hand like that you are just going to stress yourself out, which your kiddo can tell, and you are both going to have a bad time. Keeping it together while someone else is watching your progeny is a feat of astronomical proportions. There is no harm in being concerned about your child and making sure they are in a productive and safe environment, but getting to the point of worrying about nuclear attacks keeping you from them is so far overboard that you are on another continent. Bitch, be cool!