Do you ever wonder why things happen sometimes?

I’m going to tell the story of my very poor mom choices and what happened, but the only reason I am owning up to them is because I can’t help but feel like there was some Divine Intervention here.  Both to help and to hurt.  I mean, “to hurt” isn’t really the right way to put it.  But I think I needed the lesson.  Anyway, here’s how it went down.

Kaden kind of hates his car seat.  Well, it’s 50/50.  There are times when he just HATES it and screams and screams, especially if he’s tired or hungry.

Well, I have to throw him in the car to pick up Sadie from school or to run to the kids’ school to help in class or to take them to practices, etc.  Every once in awhile he has fallen asleep in my arms while I’m at the school and I really hate putting him in his car seat and waking him up, but I didn’t dare drive with him on my lap just because of the airbag.  I knew I wouldn’t be driving fast enough to get in an accident, but couldn’t help but think something might happen that set the airbag off and it would really hurt him.

Well, there were a couple times when he was cranky and I was going to be waiting in the pick-up line for Sadie and I didn’t want to sit there with him screaming the whole time so I just kept him on my lap.  I know this is a bad choice.  I know people who saw me would think I am taking a big risk as a mother.  But it is literally just down the street.

Soccer and football started and our weeks suddenly became crazy busy.  I expected soccer games on Saturdays like they’ve always been, but they are not.  Dylan’s are on Tuesdays and Kylee’s are on Thursdays.  Coincidentally, Kylee’s practices were on Tuesdays and Dylan’s were on Thursdays.  Add to that Football practice which had been Thursdays at the same time as soccer practice.  Things have changed a bit since that first couple weeks.  Football practice is not Thursday anymore, at least not the same time as soccer.  And Kylee’s practice was moved to Mondays, so it’s a little better.

So I had dropped Dylan off at football (which was earlier than soccer this day) and ran home to work on dinner so he would be able to eat something before he headed off to 1 ½ hours of soccer practice (his coach is pretty intense, which is great but new for us).  Then I rushed back to get Dylan while the burgers were on the grill and the fries were in the oven.  Kaden was tired and screaming so I just grabbed him and kept him on my lap, assuming it was going to be a really quick pick up not far from home.

Dylan was messing around and frustrating me as soon as I got there.  He had tied his shoelaces together.  Tight.  And he didn’t have them on his feet anymore.  I told him to get in the car and he jumped in the front seat.  Why, you ask?  Why not the back?

When I drive Kylee and Lexi to gymnastics, I have to have a kid sit up front.  Dylan has been sitting up front for a few reasons.  Kylee and Lexi want to be together in the back.  Sadie is way too little.  And Dylan used to need my help with his homework.  I would listen to him read, start the timer for him, give him spelling words to write, all while we drove Kylee to gym.  I promise I was safe, barely glancing at the paperwork at red lights and such.  But it worked out really well to use the 25 minutes of drive time to get his homework done instead of wasting that time.  Dylan has nearly an hour of homework each night.  So Dylan sits in the front occasionally.

That’s why he jumped in the front seat.  I was in too big of a hurry to insist he get in the back.  He was riled up and immediately touching everything up front.  He hadn’t buckled, but neither had I, and I had Kaden on my lap.  He started messing with the air vents and saying he was hot.  I told him to leave the air alone and just roll down his window.  I was at the stop sign ready to pull out onto the busy road, though it wasn’t busy at the time.  But it is a 40 mph road with traffic.  I was being careful since I obviously didn’t have kids buckled, and I started turning onto the road while I looked at the window control on my door to make sure it was unlocked so Dylan could roll down the window.  While I was turning left, and while my head was turned, Dylan mistakenly grabbed the door handle instead of the window control.  I heard it and immediately took my foot off the gas and thought to slow down.  I would’ve reached over to help him close it, but Kaden was on my lap and he was falling sideways since I was turning.  Dylan was also falling sideways and as I started breaking the door started opening wider with Dylan holding on to the handle.

You see where this is going.  It was like slow motion.  I knew it was happening but I felt helpless.  He tumbled out, in shorts and a t-shirt with no shoes on.  I pictured him under my tires.  I pictured him holding on to the door and dragging in the road.  I pictured a car behind me running him over.  I pulled off the road (without running him over, thank goodness) and jumped out of the car.  As I ran around the back Dylan was already up and walking back towards the car.  There was no huge facial wound gushing blood.  In fact, there was only a little blood on his knee.  He had landed on his hip and knee.  His hip was bruised and he was shaken up.  He climbed back in the back of the car.

Brooke had been right behind me as I was pulling out and she pulled over to make sure he was okay.  She told me there were no other cars around and nobody else saw.  She hugged me and supported me and asked if I was okay.  I was, but I was without words.  As much as I was feeling on top of our crazy schedule, that threw me.  I put my hands in the air and said I give up.  Time to SLOW DOWN just a little.

That’s when the cop stopped to see why we were stopped on the side of a busy road in the way of traffic.  He asked if we were okay.  I freaked out and handed Kaden to Brooke to put in her car, which was in front of mine, the cop was behind me.  I didn’t even have his car seat in the car so I couldn’t put him in it.  So many bad choices made by me.

I told the cop we were fine.  Then he got annoyed and asked why we had stopped there.  I told him my son wasn’t buckled and we had a scare.  But we were leaving.  The cop drove off, but Brooke kept Kaden in her car and met me at my house.

Dylan didn’t go to soccer practice that night.  Honestly, I think he was just fine, just a little bruised.  But he was shaken up and he can get really whiney when he wants to be and I pictured him having a breakdown at practice, especially since his coach is pretty tough.  So I let him skip it.

As the events rolled over and over in my head for the next couple days (and sleepless nights), initially I felt incredibly blessed.  Out of everything that could’ve happened, him being run over, if I had been going faster, etc, etc.  That was probably the best possible outcome.  I was thanking the Lord for blessing us.

And then later, as we were discussing things with family, we were talking about how the timing was just so wrong.  Had he pulled the handle five seconds earlier, I would’ve been stopped at the stop sign and he would’ve just shut the door again.  Had it happened five seconds later, I would’ve been going straight and it wouldn’t have been as hard for him to pull the door a little to latch it again.  But no, it happened right when my head was turned, right when I was turning the corner.

So why did the Lord protect him from injury so much, but also let it happen at that precise moment?  My theory is that I needed that wake-up call. I was getting lax with carrying Kaden in the car, with the kids sitting up front when we were just in our neighborhood.  When I ran the worst-case-scenarios in my head, never once did ‘open-door-and-fall-out-of-moving-vehicle’ cross my mind.  The air bag worried me, but it was off on the passenger side when kids sit there.  Tumbling around the back if I slam on my breaks, which is why I always tell them to sit in their seats.  But my eyes are opened now.  Even when the doors are locked, if you pull the handle, it still lets you open it.  The front is not safe if you are not buckled.  And Kaden is not safe on my lap.

So I learned some lessons.  And I have a little post-traumatic stress and a lot of regrets.  Things run through my head that I should’ve done at the time, like grab onto him before he tumbled out.  Or not break.  But the fact is that he really didn’t get very hurt, he was hopping around just fine a little later that night.  And we both learned a lesson.  At least I think Dylan learned a lesson.  I will certainly be more careful.

I told Dylan not to go around telling everyone at school that he fell out of the moving car.  He’s like, “why not?”  Well… because I don’t want everyone thinking I’m a horrible mother!  He ended up telling my friend Courtney because she caught him at a time he was having a moment (got in a fight with a kid in his class and was feeling bad for himself) and he told her about almost dying the day before.  I’m not sure he put it that way, but she called me to make sure I was okay.  Then Dylan told me that he told Mr. B, his counselor.  Great.  Seriously, I deserve to have the cops called on me.  But considering that he didn’t get very hurt I think Mr. B must’ve let it go without feeling it was necessary to contact me or get involved.  Accidents happen.  And I told Dylan that he doesn’t need to hide anything from Mr. B ever.  I don’t mind that he told him. 

The day after it happened, he was doing just fine.  He wanted to play on the iPad and I asked him to go outside for a little bit first.  I told him to ride his bike or scooter around the block to get some fresh air.  He took off and a few minutes later came back in screaming.  He had fallen on his scooter just by our house and his knees were BLOODY.  I swear, that kid bleeds more than anyone I know.  They were pretty ugly.  But he was fine the next day and ready for his next soccer practice.  Those knees took awhile to heal, though.

On a side note, Dylan scored an awesome touchdown at his football game today!

We haven’t been loving indoor football.  It’s slow-moving and we play against a lot of older teams.  It’s a 1^st/2^nd grade league but we are all 1^st graders.   We have two great players (Justin and Tate) so we can often score a few points and win.  But today we were not doing well.  It was painful to watch.  Dylan was defense the first half and he would literally be on the field for two minutes.  The other team would run a play, score, and defense would get off so offense could come back.  They shut us down so quickly on offense too that we had to throw the ball on fourth-down probably four times.  It was ugly.  The second half Dylan was playing offense.  He did some blocking, and then there was a play where he got to run the ball.  He said he dropped the first hike (I was dealing with Kaden being fussy and not expecting Dylan to have the ball so I didn’t see it at first) then he caught the second hike and started running.  He was running side-to-side trying to find an opening and not getting anywhere, but he had some good blockers helping him out and eventually just went for it.  I saw a few hands grabbing at him but somehow he got through.  They were back near our own goal (where they had been the whole game) so he had to run about ¾ of the field.  There was one other guy he had to get by, but he just ran to the side and got past.  He glanced behind him and “saw like 50 people chasing me! So I just took off!”  He was really happy.  Seriously, that team was fast and vicious so I’m not sure how they didn’t catch up to him or how he got through the line in the first place, but it was really fun to watch him.  He did some good blocking for Tate at the very end as well and Tate almost got through but not quite.  Dylan scored our only touchdown, though the score was 22-6.  It made the whole game worth watching.  Ryan was busy winning a golf tournament in the wind so he missed it, but Dylan got to tell him all about it.

Dylan is really enjoying soccer and doing quite well.  Even though his coach is tough, he really likes it.  I’ll get some pictures when I can.