Pants-Free Parenting: Despite our fears, kids really are resilient

When I called poison control after my baby ate a cigarette, the woman on the line just laughed. 'You'd be surprised at how much nicotine a baby can ingest. He'll be fine.”

And he was. It didn't stop him. While I was on the phone, he opened the dishwasher, got a knife and waved it at me.

Recently, this same child smashed his finger in the front door while trying to escape. When I rescued him, his finger looked completely flat. My husband - who when I was pregnant and cut my hand on glass and couldn't stop bleeding, suggested I just wait it out - that man took one look at the baby's finger and said, 'Let's go to the doctor.”

As it turns out, he was fine. The doctor just shrugged and said, 'You'd be surprised what won't break them.”

Ten minutes after he got home, his finger swollen and purple, my baby tried skating on top of his trucks and fell hard on his head.

Does the emergency room have a buy one, get one free deal? What about a frequent visitor punch card? Would Blue Cross be down with that?

As I held my crying bruised and squirming child, my husband just sighed. 'We will be surprised at what he can live through.”

Human children are amazingly resilient.

When my daughter was born, I lived in fear of dropping her. Every step I took while holding her seemed dangerous. I'd walk down the sidewalk and just see myself stumbling and her falling forward and cracking open on the cement.

Then, when she was 11 months old, I did drop her. I was delivering cookies to a neighbor and slipped on the ice. The cookies went flying and my daughter slid, hitting her head on the cement. She barely cried as a goose egg formed on the back of her head. Sobbing, I called the doctor and brought her in. She is fine, my doctor assured me. 'She will be OK.”

I cried for the rest of the day, choking back my tears as she played happily on the floor. I hovered over her during nap time. I spent all day Googling 'Kids and falling.”

After dropping my daughter, I learned that sometimes, that thing you've always feared will happen. And you will survive.

Humans are amazingly resilient. I've had a sister go through a devastating car crash. I watched her learn to walk again, without a knee cap, with metal and screws in her leg. Her body still bears the patchwork of scars.

I once met a girl who had endured a war just to come to America and face another brutal battle; this time at home.

This woman now has a job and a life. She is amazing and talented. It's amazing what we survive.

As a parent, I want to shield my kids from every danger and every harm. But if I am being completely realistic, the statistics show that most kids are injured at home or in the car, with me at the wheel. I'm their protector, but I'm also their greatest danger.

Navigating that place of fear and survival is hard as a parent because it's hard as a human. But the resiliency of their little spirits and little bodies reminds me that my kids can live through so, so much.

Even having me as a parent.

' Lyz Lenz is a writer, mother of two and hater of pants. Email her at eclenz@gmail.com or find her writing at LyzLenz.com.