Hopes and Doubts

I've been busy raising Luke. He's SO active and talking and full of curiosity. I'm teaching him and watching him grow and wonder. I wonder...if I'm up to this...how will I ever give him the space to grow when all I want to do is hold him close and protect him? Once you've lost a child, well, you've lost a child. And you never ever want anything to happen to another child. I examine him every day when I pick him up from daycare. "What is this little mark here on his cheek?" I ask his teacher. She tells me he got it playing with the other toddlers. I'll say, "How can we make sure these kids don't get hurt? Are there too many of them together?" When what I really want to say is, "Take better care of my child! I'd better not see one little scratch or bruise on him or else!" When he was coming home with bite marks on his arm a few months ago (twice), I demanded to know which child was biting. The director says she can't tell me. So I look at the bite marks on his arm and casually check the teeth of the other toddlers when they smile. I never found the culprit and have no idea what I would have done anyway. And then I received an incident report one day that Luke had bitten another child. So I think that now he's been taught to bite and he'll be a Biter (with a capital B) and why did he have to bite? Was he protecting himself from the first biter? From something else? But he doesn't bite again and also comes home with arms free of bite marks. And I know that kids play and fall down and even sometimes bite each other. All part of growing up. But there's a part of me that just wants to make sure that his little body stays pristine. No bruises, no scrapes, nothing unhealthy inside or out. I wish I knew how to do this. How to love and protect him but not be such a freak about it.