Last week Ryan was in Southern Utah camping and hiking with
the young men for High Adventure. I was
home with the kiddos. Single mom. Trying to stay positive. Trying to find joy in the journey. Trying not to yell too much. Really, though, it was okay. Sure, my kids are frustrating and I get
exhausted by the end of the day and I resort to begging them to please go to
bed while I’m curled on the floor whimpering…
But my stress levels were not all that high. I know the Lord blesses those that serve and
I know we were blessed while Ryan was away doing his calling.
I sat there watching my kids playing and fighting and making
messes when they were supposed to be going to bed. And I felt a bit frustrated. But here’s the thing. I have four amazingly healthy, beautiful
children! Not everyone can say that.
There’s this ad on the radio for Primary Children’s Hospital
that says something like, be happy your child is throwing a tantrum at the
store, because he could be receiving chemo in the hospital. Be happy your child is coloring on the walls,
because she could be recovering from traumatic brain injury at the hospital.
(Note: the actually ad doesn’t say these things, but something similar and you
get the idea.) How true is it,
though? Complain about your kids all you
want, but the mother who lost her child recently would give anything to have
something like that to complain about.
Yes, that is touching.
It makes you think a little bit.
But what really inspired this post, and got my mind whirring, were the
tragic accidents that have been on the news lately. (And by “the news” I mean on my Facebook feed
because I purposely avoid the news so I don’t have to hear about all the
sadness out there.)
A 3 or 4 year-old little boy climbed into the exhibit of the
huge Silverback Gorillas at the zoo in Cincinnati. He then fell 12-15 feet into the shallow moat
where the Gorillas play. The large male
gorilla came up to him, and played with him.
He dragged him violently by the foot in the water. There was a video. It’s terrifying. People also reported him dragging him up the
wall/hill while his head banged against it.
I can’t even imagine being the mother of that child and watching, hoping
the gorilla wouldn’t accidentally drown the kid or crush his head. People stopped the mother from jumping in
herself. I’m not sure if I could’ve been
stopped, but really what would that accomplish?
Then you’re both stuck in there. The
story ends with the kid being okay with minimal injuries, but the poor gorilla
had to be shot in order to save the kid.
They tried calling him out of the exhibit, and the two females did exit
but the male did not leave the kid. And
they decided tranquilizers were not an option as they take a few minutes to
kick in and he could have a physical reaction to being shot before they took
effect.
I had nightmares about that one for awhile and thanked our
Heavenly Father that the boy was saved.
I wish that was the only one, but no.
Not long after there was another horribly tragic accident,
which didn’t have as happy of an ending.
A 2-year-old boy playing on a beach at the Disney World resort in the
little man-made lake, was attacked by an alligator and dragged into the water. The father was close enough to try and wrestle
him out of the gators mouth, but didn’t succeed. Seriously, I about throw-up just thinking of
it. I can’t imagine the horror. They caught and killed like four gators and
looked in their stomach for signs up the boy.
I don’t know that they ever found anything.
I also watched a clip from a security video of a man trying
to kidnap a 13-year-old girl in the middle of the day from a convenience
store! The mother fought him! They were doing tug-of-war with the girl’s
arms! The guy gave up and tried to run
away but an off-duty officer was outside the store and had a gun and I think
was able to subdue him until police came.
Seriously, though? Wrestling your
child from a predator, human or animal.
Nightmare.
Along with all of these real-life horrors, I read a book
called ‘Room’. It’s from the point of
view of a 5-year-old boy, born and raised in a room where his mother was being
held for like eight years I think. Now,
this book is fiction but it’s loosely based off of a real life incident. In this book the girl was 19 when she was
taken and locked away. She ended up
having the baby of her captor, and raised him very well in this room of
theirs. They eventually escape and the
boy has to be introduced to everything in the world. A little hard for me to read, but interesting
to think of what it would be like to never see the outdoors or many other things.
But what got me about the book was this woman’s mother, who
had her 19-year-old daughter disappear for years and years. And I started thinking that would definitely
be worse than having your child die. To
know your daughter was out there, most likely being abused on a daily
basis. For how long? This was about where I broke.
You see, I’m not scared for myself. Me, as a woman, alone, I can handle
things. Even if something horrific
happened to me, I have a testimony of life after this life and I could get
through. But now I have brought four
children into this world that I am responsible for. And I can do everything in my power to keep
them safe. But there are crazy things
that can happen. An ALLIGATOR at DISNEY
WORLD. What???? There is no planning for that one. There are so many things that can go
wrong. Cancer, or other illnesses. Bad accidents, hit by car because teenager is
texting. SIDS. Child trafficking. There are evils in this world. Sometimes it’s hard to find the balance
between the good and the evil. You want
to see the good in people, but there are so many disturbed people out there
that are unpredictable. Whether it’s
mental illness or drugs, they do really bad things. And then there are accidents. And I have nightmares. And I plead with the Lord every night to keep
my children safe, to help me be a good mother and know how to protect them and
teach them.
I am scared. I’m not
sure how I could go on living if something happened to my children. I hope that is never a burden I am asked to
carry.
All these thoughts ^^^^ are thoughts I had last week. They were brought to the surface today when
Kaden had an accident.
We were at the park.
Kaden loves to be outside, and especially loves parks and slides. The kids had a soccer camp today and between
picking up Dylan and Kylee, and when Sadie’s age group started, we had half an
hour to waste so we played at the park.
Kaden wanted to climb so I lifted him up on the playground equipment and
he and Sadie were running on the little “bridge” that wobbles a little. It has chains as a ‘railing’ and I guess I
assumed if he stumbled they would keep him from falling. Well, I was wrong. I was still standing on the one end where I
had lifted him up, but he stumbled at the other end and I couldn’t stop
him. He fell through the chains, about
five feet, and landed on the bark at the bottom. And then he didn’t cry, but laid there
still. My mom is in town this week and
we both ran to him and she called 911. I
tried to hold his head/neck still and begged him to cry while I watched for him
to breathe. He must’ve knocked the wind
out of him because he wasn’t breathing normal, short little gasps with too much
time between. He moaned a little. It seemed like a long time, but I guess it
was less than two minutes before he started whimpering more and crying
harder. Then he tried to sit up so I
assumed his neck was okay and I held him.
We cancelled the ambulance and I drove him to the hospital since we were
right next door and he was moving more.
I don’t really have words.
I could go my whole life without seeing my child unresponsive on the ground
ever again. Especially one so
small. This fourth child is going to be
the death of me. Am I too lax? I swear I treated the other kids the same way
and none of them had these things happen.
He is so accident prone, but really not clumsy so I’m not sure why he’s
had so many accidents. I swear they
probably have a file started for me now to track us since he’s been seen so
many times in his short life. Then they
will hear that I have stopped vaccinating him and I’ll really be investigated…
So, the end of the story is he seems to be fine. We went to the ER, he screamed at the staff
there not because he was in so much pain, but because he legitimately fears
doctors. Ryan met us there and Kaden got
some much-needed Dada snuggles. And Ryan
took him back for his CT scan. I stayed
in the ER room but I could hear his screams from there. I prayed they would get what they needed
without sedating him. Ryan came back and
said they wrapped him up and strapped him down and got it done. Thank goodness. Kaden snuggled with both of us back and
forth. Poor kid. Then Ryan left to take Kylee and Dylan home
(Sadie was still at soccer) and Kaden was sad that he left, but ended up falling
asleep on my shoulder. So we stayed
there like that until the results came back and the Dr came in and told me he
looked good, no concerns, even in his spine.
Which means there was no trauma to the brain, at least not that he could
see, and it was okay for Kaden to sleep (concussion victims aren’t supposed to
sleep for whatever reason). He said he
may be slightly concussed and show some signs later today, but shouldn’t be too
much. When I was alone in the room with him again, him sleeping on my shoulder, I broke down. I can hold it together when things need to get done. Once he was done and safe in my arms, I lost it. Only for a minute. Then they signed us out and we went home. So far, he’s showing no deficits,
hasn’t vomited, hasn’t been miserable, didn’t even sleep for very long- woke up
when I loaded him in the car and stayed awake for a couple more hours before I
put him down for a proper nap.
I am counting my blessings, holding my littles tight, and
rethinking my parenting… This guy will
now be within arm’s reach at all times near anything he may climb on. And I will be more cautious from now on. He’s going to end up thinking I’m
overprotective. He might be the only one
I insist wears a helmet on anything with wheels at all times. And no trampolines. And no football for him. Ever.
This kid does not need any more hits to the head. I swear, for every time he has gotten hurt,
there have been many, many other close-calls.
He is SO accident-prone. I’m
going to get an ulcer.
He’s pretty scraped and bruised. But he’s going to be okay. We were fortunate. It could’ve been much worse.
I’m scared of the future. For all my kids. For what could happen to any of them at any
given moment. There are too many sad
stories out there. Most recently I read
about a woman who fell asleep while her twin 3-year-olds were playing and woke
up to find they had went outside, climbed into the truck, and couldn’t get the
door open again. They both died in the
heat. See, this is what I’m talking
about. My nerves are getting so high
that I may not be functional soon. I
will homeschool my kids and never let them leave our yard. I will place bubble wrap everywhere in our
house and we will just be here. I’ll
order food online to be delivered. That
would totally work.
Oh yeah, then this happened shortly after we got home.
About four houses away from us. It’s still there. Nobody was hurt. Somehow the recycling truck caught fire,
there were like three explosions. The
driver got out before that. He’s
fine. Crazy things happen. It’s a scary world. At least I have faith that there is a plan
for us and we are meant to be here. And
if the worst happens, we have our faith to help us through. I would just prefer that the worst not
happen. Not to us.
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