My name is Danielle and I'm a Paranoid Mommy.

I consider myself one of the best.

It's just so easy to become a paranoid mommy with all this information ready at our fingertips. There's so much out there and there's so much we're expected to pay attention to.

I think it's perfectly reasonable. I adore my kids, just as I'm sure all parents do and we want to keep them safe. I'm just unsure of the boundaries of TOO safe or just safe enough. I want them to live and have fun, but at the same time, I really just want to lock us all up in a bomb shelter and wait until their older, just like Blast From The Past. If you haven't seen that movie, it's a cute one. I like it. I hope that doesn't say anything negative about my personality.

There's so much bad out there. So much happening in our schools, shootings where you used to feel safe, child abductions and scary bacteria in our food, waiting to harm us. I know that I can't live in fear but once and awhile, it just gets to me.

I don't see anything wrong with being informed and conscious of what is out there. I think it's perfectly normal. However, there may be a few things that carry me from "conscious" mommy to "paranoid" mommy.

1. I can turn a simple back bruise into any disease that could harm my child, simply by googling images and hunting on WebMD.

2. The nurses know me by name because of the frequency I call them with inane questions regarding my child's health/wound of the day.

3. Every time something shows up on the news about children missing or getting abducted/harmed, I look up houses deep in Canada/Alaska, far away from civilization and wonder how hard it would be to become self-sufficient, while living in a cave in the middle of nowhere.

4. Or I start planning what kind of bubble would be the most safe without harming their ability to breathe.

5. I won't let my kids enter a lake. Any lake. Ever.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/19268985/cdc-confirms-amebic-infection-killed-lily-lake-swimmer
 and
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/video?clipId=7014675&autostart=true

I know that these are limited to just a few lakes and I grew up just fine playing in lakes, but I can't seem to let go enough. Sorry kids.

6. My kids don't know what our front yard looks like. They are not allowed past the side door on our house. I don't care how good they are about staying close or not going into the street. Sometimes it's not just about them but about other people/cars around us.

7. I watch all the food documentaries that scare you about our diet/food source on Netflix and even plant a garden so my kids are super healthy eaters. Then my husband has to intervene because he's wondering where the real food is at since our garden failed produce anything edible. Turns out, self-sufficient isn't as easy as it sounded.

8. I don't like playdates with people that tell you just to "drop them off for a few hours". I don't care who the playdate is with (unless it's a family member). I'm not dropping my child off to play at your house because I don't trust you.

Most of these I feel are normal. I have had people tell me before that I can't let my kids live in a bubble forever and that I need to let go a little.

But since I'm the Mommy, I don't care what those people say.

I feel as if our world is changing and the rules that applied 20 years ago are not the same rules that we can employ today.

I can hardly stand to watch the news anymore, it gives me anxiety like you wouldn't believe. Whenever I hear of a child being harmed or killed, I get the shakes and stay up all night thinking of ways I can protect my children even more than I do now.

This feeling doesn't stop at just MY children. If I hear about a child that's been abused, I want to go into foster care and take in all kids that need a loving home.

My husband dreads this feeling of mine, but I can't seem to help it. He's scared I'm going to fill our house with 100 children. I would officially have my own circus.

This post came out a little different than I had planned. Sorry about some of my more serious points. I tried to be funny today, but I guess I just don't have it in me when it comes to this stuff.

It's hard to be a Mom sometimes. There's so much expected of us. I just hope I can do my job well, by keeping them safe and loved, while raising them to be good people.