RED ALERT

My firstborn gap year teenage son rang me this morning from Thailand. “Hi mum, OMG guess what’s happened?”….

…and my heart leapt out of my chest and into my throat yet again and that feeling lurches forward – the one all parents dread when they’re terrified for their children’s safety. The one my brother and his wife recently had when their 1 week old daughter went blue. The one I had when my 3 week old daughter had pneumonia and I was in hospital with her, of when she was 10 months old and was fitting and I picked her up in my arms and ran to the vets and they gave her oxygen and bundled us into a siren wielding ambulance. That feeling I had when my son had a general anaesthetic, when my daughter had swine flu, when yesterday there was a crash at the bottom of my road and I knew my son was not yet home or when I got a call from a parent who said “have you heard they’ve been in a fight and been arrested in Krakov” and you suddenly think about those poor boys who lost their lives on a bus in Thailand and so the list goes on – those things that make the hairs on your neck stand up and your heart pound. That feeling that is never far away when you are a parent, lurking just under your skin, ready to leap out at the first sign of danger.

“WHAAAAAAT? WHAT’S HAPPENED??????” I say in manner of mad woman expecting the worst and visualising collecting passports and booking tickets and getting out there as fast as possible.

“W forgot to bring me my new SIM card. I’ve got a new phone. We’ve all met up now and we’re in Chiang Mai. Calm down mum. It’s all good”.

FFS. This parenting business is going to give me a heart attack.