Safety and Such

As parents, our job first and formost is to keep our children safe.  I think about the hours I spent researching car seats, cribs, and pretty much any large baby item that comes into the house (and filling out those registration card for when they are invetibly recalled).  Then there are the days where I watch the kids at the playground and imagine the falls they could take, the parking lot they could run or scooter into, walks where I think about cars backing out of driveways, them slipping in the bathtub, choking, it never ends, but you try to prevent it nonetheless.  Then those days come along when everything seems out of your control and you realize how fruitless the worry and concern are, because no matter what you prepare for, it's the unexpected that will catch you off guard.

Sunday was one of those days, where nothing really major went wrong, but I was shaken just the same and feeling inadequate in keeping the kids from harm.  I was at my parents' and we put Sam down for a nap, in the lovely all-white bed my mother has in the guest room.  White sheets, duvet cover, pillows, the whole thing.  We heard Sam call for me almost immediately, about fifteen minutes after Vivian had gone to sleep in the next room.  My mom went up to discover his nose was bleeding.  I pulled him out of the bed and took him into the bathroom where the blood just gushed, splashing the bathroom floor, soaking his shirt, even getting on his pants.  I am usually able to talk Sam through a nosebleed and it will stop fairly quickly.  Maybe the longest we've gone is 10-15 minutes, but this was a whole different thing.  There was blood everywhere, I wasn't as calm as I should have been, and Sam was wailing and crying, which made it worse.  I picked him up and brought him downstairs to the kitchen, at which point Vivian obviously started to scream.  My dad sat with Sam in his lap for the next half hour, while we tried to get it to stop.  It eventually did, but there was  lot of blood lost.  Joe had Sam wrapped in his lap with a towel, Roz had a screaming Vivian and loads of bloody laundry, and I kind of uselessly walked around with paper towels trying to call the pediatrician.  We went through a roll of paper towels, an outfit, and about ten stories to keep Sam still, before it was finished.  Three adults and one nosebleed- so glad I wasn't alone with the kids.
We left their house, leaving them with our mess from lunch and laundry from the nosebleed to head to a birthday party.  At which point my car, a Ford Escape, which have been under investigation for stalling like issues- went into limp mode.  Limp mode means that the car reduces it's own speed to about 5 miles an hour, despite the driver trying to accelerate.  The first time it happened I was in traffic on a residential street and could easily and safely pull over, and it immediately restarted.  So luckily this time I was able to feel that it was happening, put my hazards on and got across lanes of traffic before it totally lost power.  It restarted thankfully, but I was rattled.

We got to the birthday party just as the pediatrician's office returned the phone call about the bloody nose.  I chased Vivian up and down the street as I tried to talk to them.  Vivian falls at least ten times a day, as it is.  She moves quickly and has little fear.  She tumbles of the couch, slips on thresholds, toys, climbs onto chairs, coffee tables, beds, whatever she thinks is feasible, she will do.  So obviously she fell and scraped her knee on the sidewalk while I was on the phone.  I got off the phone with them, cleaned her knee and went into the party.  Chris was dealing with problems at work with tenants moving into apartments, so I was solo with the kids.  The birthday party featured a bouncy house, a swimming pool, and a river/stream at the bottom of a hill that ran through the backyard.  Kids were fishing in the water with nets.  With two young kids, it's like assessing the lesser of evils, where to let them play.  I told Sam we didn't have bathing suits with us and tried to remove him from my leg, where he was clinging and whining, from not napping and probably tired from his nosebleed, so that I could chase Vivian.  He finally got involved something and Vivian headed for the hill.  She kind of slid down and got to the water and grabbed a net.  I grabbed the back of her shirt and she started to walk into the water, immediately losing her balance and falling.  I was able to grab her arm, before she submerged and yank her entire body out of it.  She was coated from head to toe with mud, soaking wet, and completely bewildered.  I ran up the hill to  get her cleaned off in the kitchen sink, she was shaking and I was shaking and pretty much ready to leave, particularly since I now couldn't see Sam anywhere.

It all could have been worse, the kids were fine, just a little muddier and bloodier, but just a series of events that I would have preferred not to have.  The car is at the dealership where they are repairing it  and if it happens again, they swear up and down they'll give us a good deal on a trade in.  Everyday there is a that little moment of something, someone falling- Vivian out of the sandbox and scraping up her arm, Sam somersaulting off his scooter, losing sight of one of them while we are out and about, or reading about some unfortunate accident in the newspaper.  So many gray hairs to grow!