Self Fulfilling Head Injuries

I am baffled. Why do my kids seem prone to accidents that involve head injuries? Maybe it is my clutzy genes. Many of you know about Sarah's scary accident in February falling from a play structure - on her head. That was a nightmare come true and our first 911 call. In the last few weeks, Angela and I have watched Sarah and Natalie doing swimming lessons and cheerleading. (Just a side note: Angela will be doing a fun class in the fall because I feel bad she had to watch her sisters have all the fun this summer) Anyway, in her boredom, Angela would often be goofing off and not playing with the toys I brought to entertain her. She had several accidents - mostly falls with bumps and bruises on her knees. Yesterday, however, she somehow tripped on her own feet (she had flip flops that I told her she shouldn't wear) and flipped over the bottom bench and fell right on her head on the cement. The rest of her body flipped over and her shoes went flying. I threw the magazine I had on the ground and ran over to her in a panic. She gave me quite a scare. One of the life guards brought me an ice pack and another girl made me sign some paper saying exactly what happened - good old liability crap.

I'll get on my soap box for just a minute... It makes me so mad that we have to worry about dumb stuff like that because there are dummies (I have stronger words, but we'll leave it at that) who would actually try to sue an establishment for an accident that was . . . well, an ACCIDENT. So rather than people focusing on helping the child who is hurt and making sure everyone's okay - people automatically go into their "liability"/"someone might sue us" mode. This same exact thing happened when Angela was born and a nurse accidentally cut her tiny wrist while removing the hospital band. It was a dumb accident and she should have been more careful, but rather than apologizing and making sure Angela was okay - she panicked and tried to hide it while she figured out what she should do to protect herself and the hospital in case we wanted to become millionaires based on her little mistake. Meanwhile, Angela is crying and immediately a secondary concern. Pretty sad, I think.

Okay, moving on... So I am baffled why these scary things always happen to my kids. I am one of those moms that is way more strict with my kids - "don't go up there", "hold my hand", "stay right by me", "don't go outside with your shoes off", etc. I think I am a lot more uptight and worried about accidents than a lot of other moms. I see other parents let their kids to things that make my stomach turn with nervousness - and they walk away just fine. Maybe I just don't happen to be around when those kids have accidents. Maybe I am just somehow creating self-fulfilling prophecies by worrying and obsessing over "what if"s that constantly swim around my brain. I think I need to loosen up, but how do I when I've just seen my little sweetie fall head first on concrete? This mom business is so worrisome!