safety in numbers, mine is 4....

Good Morning All,
In the middle of the night last night, my beautiful, sweet, sensitive little daughter Emma Claire came furiously climbing up the center of my bed as though she were being chased. She woke me very suddenly and apologetically, explaining expediently that she had a nightmare that she had been kidnapped. She said and I quote "It was just awful Mumma and I can't stop thinking about it, I think I might need you to hold me".....
For me, fear or illness in my children triggers my Maternal instinct like nothing else. I could have been accepting the Nobel peace prize at that very moment and I would have dropped it immediately to free up my arms to wrap tightly around her. I held her into my chest, squeezing her, she was shaking like a brittle autumn leaf in the wind and I had to literally contain her to dull the quaking. I could feel her heart beating, it was dangerously fast and mine beat in time with hers, my fear spiking too.
I don't ever want a police officer to ask me for a picture of Emma to post on an Amber alert. It is the understatement of the century to say I would not do well with a missing child.....
(I don't want to go there)
My point for writing about this experience is simply that I was thinking about children and their fear a lot last night and I thought it was blog worthy, thought worthy, hug worthy even.
Yesterday my friend Steph called asking if I was available to keep her baby daughter Sydney for a few hours while she took her husband Scott to the urologist (poor guy had kidney stones - ouch) I was happy to take Syd as she is quite possibly the sweetest baby since Emma. Stephanie came and dropped her off and all was  just fine until about ten minutes in when Sydney looked around my house and realized that Mommy and Daddy were no where to be found....Her bottom lip began to suck in and out with her heaving deep breaths and her big innocent eyes welled with pools of tears. She looked and looked and heaved and heaved....Her sad face was killing me. I was holding her and rubbed my hand over her soft baby hair and I said "I know honey it's scary isn't it" - children find their safety in their parents, period. Sydney knows me very well and actually really does love me, about a minute into the sad face and the hair stroking she head planted on my shoulder and sighed as if to say, okay I guess I am okay for now. The rest of our time was full of crawling hide and seek games, laughing, chewing plastic straws and pretty much baby fun.
When Scott and Steph returned to retrieve their bundle of love and she saw them, heard their voices as they talked with Kevin in the next room even, her face literally lit up light someone had flipped on her switch. She was like a little glo-worm, her joy and comfort elevated to a level that can only be felt while in the midst of the Rents and her smile in turn, lit up my kitchen.
God being a MOTHER is the best thing ever. It really is something else to be another human beings safe place....I feel privileged that whoever it is that makes these decisions thought me capable enough to give me four opportunities to FEEL this and BE this.
Our kids need us to be worthy.... It is so easy in the midst of busyness and craziness to overlook what we mean to our kids. It is so easy to just drive them here and there, fold their laundry and nag them to take out the trash, so easy to take for granted that they are here and we are here with them.
Kids love us as much as we love them. And that's all I have to say because I am crying now.
My advice for the day Moms and Dads, revel in that you = safety for your children. Revel in that they are safe. Hold them like I held Emma, like I am sure Steph held Sydney. Hold them tight tight tight. It's quite something this bond, it's quite something to be the everything to someone who is your everything.