There’s a strange kind of heartbreak in motherhood no one really warns you about.

One day your children believe you are magic.

That your arms can stop nightmares.

That your bed is safer than theirs.

That if they crawl beside you at two in the morning, nothing bad can touch them.

And honestly? For a little while, I think we believe it too.

Lynnlee has been sleeping in my bed lately. Some nights it’s because of a “bad dream,” though with six-year-old logic it’s often unclear if the dream was real, imagined, or inspired by a random YouTube short she watched three weeks ago.

Either way, I let her stay.

Because if I tell her no, she usually ends up there eventually anyway after sneaking in sometime around 3 a.m. like a tiny emotional support ninja.

And truthfully… I cherish it.

That’s the strange blessing of raising little kids while also raising teenagers and young adults.

You get to see both sides at once.

You see the beginning while already grieving the ending.

I know these moments pass quickly because I’ve already lived it once.

The same kids who used to climb into my lap now drive cars, stay out late, make their own decisions, and sometimes barely emerge from their rooms except to eat everything in the kitchen and disappear again.

It’s wild to think my youngest kids could realistically be the same age as grandkids could have been considering I had my oldest at nineteen.

Motherhood is weird like that.

You spend years exhausted and overstimulated, then suddenly realize the chaos itself was the magic.

Unfortunately, this morning the magic came with impact injuries.

At some point before sunrise, Lynnlee rolled directly out of my very high bed onto our wood-look tile floor and somehow crashed into a laundry basket on the way down like a WWE wrestler entering the ring.

Nothing wakes you up faster than hearing your child hit the floor.

I jumped up immediately, scooped her into my arms, and held her tight while she cried.

Which naturally created another emergency.

Because Harper woke up and became deeply offended that Lynnlee was receiving premium two-arm cuddle service while she was only getting partial access to one side of me.

Honestly, in three-year-old logic, I can understand her frustration.

So there I sat before sunrise holding one emotionally wounded toddler and one physically wounded child wondering how my life became a hostage negotiation fueled by jealousy and laundry baskets.

And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, I realized something uncomfortable.

We never really stop looking for safe places.

They just change shape over time.

When we’re little, it’s mom’s bed.

Mom’s arms.

The hallway light left on at night.

Then we grow up and our safe places become friendships, marriages, routines, homes, careers, or people we trust with the most fragile parts of ourselves.

And eventually life teaches us something difficult:

Even safe places can hurt us accidentally.

Even people who love us deeply can let us down sometimes.

Even the softest places can still be where we fall.

As parents, that realization is brutal because we want so badly to protect our children from every hard thing life will hand them.

But we can’t.

Not completely.

At some point they all outgrow our beds, our arms, our protection, and our ability to fix everything with a hug and a cartoon Band-Aid.

And maybe that’s the hardest part of motherhood:

realizing love does not make us infallible.

I can’t stop every heartbreak.

I can’t soften every landing.

I can’t prevent every fall.

But maybe safety was never really about preventing the fall in the first place.

Maybe it’s about who helps you back up afterward.

Because after all the tears, the dramatic jealousy, the near death-by-laundry-basket incident, and the complete destruction of everyone’s sleep schedule…

Lynnlee still curled herself against me like I was home.

For now, I still am.

And I know enough now to understand those seasons don’t last forever.

So tonight, if she crawls back into my bed after another “very real definitely not imaginary” nightmare?

I’ll scoot over.

Because someday she won’t.

And honestly, that hurts a whole lot more than stepping on a Barbie at two in the morning.