I never thought I’d be so happy about having a bookshelf with actual books on it. I haven’t seen this sight for more than four years.

These books have been in hiding – shoved under my nightstand, stacked up on the bottom shelf of an end table. There’s nothing wrong with these exact books. It’s the very act of placing them on a bookshelf and trusting that they’ll stay there that’s revelatory.

While books don’t jump off shelves, they do end up on the floor when a toddler pulls them down with his sticky, wet little fingers.

Once my older son started crawling, babyproofing became a matter of both safety and our sanity. Of course, we didn’t want him to hurt himself. But neither did we want our beloved books drooled on and the pages ripped. The real fear of them being destroyed meant we had to put that part of our lives away for a time. After all, they don’t publish Game of Thrones in board book form. So the books went away – and stayed away. By the time my older son grew out of that behavior, my younger son had come along and was even more of a force of nature.

Now, both kids are finally old enough to bring those books back. Sure, they still clutter the floor or the coffee table, spines bent in ways that make me shiver. My kids do enjoy “looking for the pictures” or enjoying the sensation of flipping hundreds pages at a time. But I don’t worry about them being destroyed anymore. I see how my kids have at least a minimal level of care and sense of responsibility towards their own books and know they can handle mine.

This transformation of bookshelf from toy repository to storing books is just the latest sign of emerging from the stage one of my favorite bloggers calls “The Blur.” With my kids being two and five, it feels like we’re coming out of a fog. The Blur is that time in early childhood when time both drags so much and moves so quickly that you can’t comprehend it. Although everything feels so sharp in that moment, there’s so much going on that it all blends together.

For me, the hardest part of young childhood was the anxiety around keeping these little people alive. It started with not wanting to leave the house by myself when my baby was a newborn because what if they got hungry? When I went back to work, it was all about wondering if I had pumped enough that day. With solid foods came the risk of choking or not eating enough. Toddlerhood brought bumped heads and possibly falling down flights of steep stairs.

The other big weight on me was the feeling of always being emotionally on-call. During my maternity leave with my older son, he would cry if I put him down for more than a moment. To add to that challenge, he would only nap in my lap. As he got older, his emotional intensity ramped up, requiring a patient, steady voice and so much emotional strength. Once my younger son was born, there was a constant push-and-pull between taking care of him and providing my older son with attention. My younger son’s cries also inspired mini-panic attacks, making any time he got upset absolutely exhausting.

But now, if we’re in the house, I can leave them for a few moments and not feel like they’re in physical or emotional danger. If they’re eating, the chances of them choking on something are low. At the playground, I can be on one side with one kid and keep an eye on the other, knowing they aren’t going to randomly walk off a platform. (Trying a dare-devil stunt is another question altogether.) I can water the garden without worrying that they’ll be eating the rocks from the driveway.

Similarly, the emotional demands are not as overwhelming. They still call “Mamaaaaaa!” butI know they’ll survive a couple minutes of whining while I’m in the shower. I can chat with my husband for a few moments after I get home from work without feeling guilt drag me down. I can even choose go away for a weekend without feeling like I’m abandoning the kids.

Perhaps it’s just that I’ve gotten used to the risk and demands. After all, there are plenty of dangerous situations two and five-year-olds can get into and preschoolers still need plenty of attention.

But to me, it feels like my kids and I have developed a sense of mutual trust. Me trusting in the kids, but also me trust in myself as a mom. Trust that I will be able to take care of them, trust that I can protect them, and trust that I love them. But also trust that things will go wrong and it will be okay. Kids will puke on car trips and we will clean it up. I’ll make a bad decision and they’ll forgive me. Books will end up off the shelves and we’ll put them back on.

By putting those books back on the shelves, I’ve gained a piece of myself back. A piece that I felt like I had lost in that lack of trust in myself and the world. But in reality, I don’t think that piece of me ever left. An ocean of anxiety and fear was just drowning it out. Now, that ocean is draining, from time and support and love for myself. Just as I keep my arms open to my children, I’m glad to welcome that part of me back too.

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