An Apology to Owen

Owen,
You're my first child so you're sort of a guinea pig when it comes to my parenting attempts.  I just want to say..
I'm sorry...

that you spent most of the winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, and then spring again with a cold since I let you lick the equipment in the mall play area and eat food off the floor (even public ones)

that you were exposed to Criminal Minds, Game of Thrones, Law and Order, and other violent television shows since you were born and only recently stopped letting you watch them.  I hope they did not cause your nightmares

that you inherited my love-hate relationship with most vegetables, meaning we love only about four vegetables unconditionally (sugar peas, carrots, asparagus, and broccoli) while disdaining everything else your dad tries to feed us

that I have let you get overly tired often because I'm too lazy to really instill a proper bedtime routine that every parenting book, website, television special talks about

that I never bothered to childproof anything so that containers of bleach and other potentially dangerous items become your play things

and that I let you climb on most anything (rocking horse, couch, cars), risking your life and limb.

Perhaps your visit to the emergency room on Tuesday was just my penance.  After all of the dangerous or semi-dangerous mistakes I've made, you end up hurting yourself by tripping over a toy... and catching the lid of your toy drum (which is not sharp at all!) in such a manner to create a half inch gash over your eye. 

Oh, and I'm really sorry that I doubted we needed to take you to the emergency room.  I'll confess, I was just going to apply pressure and ice until it stopped bleeding.  And maybe some neosoporin.  But your dad's much better about this sort of thing and insisted that we at least take you to your pediatrician to evaluate whether you needed to go to the emergency room.

And I'm really, really sorry that we subjected you to some medicine that stung when applied to your cut and had to use a head wrap to keep the medicine in place.  And that you can't understand why the doctor kept blocking your view of Elmo's World with sharp scissor things and a long string.  And if it becomes a really nasty scar (like your dad is absolutely convinced it will) because I don't remember to apply sunblock to it when we're out in Hawaii...

I'm really, really, really sorry, Owen.