Just Breathe

I have never had a near death experience, at least none that I can remember. I'm sure that my brother and I probably gave my mom quite a few heart attacks.  There have been a couple times that my kids' lives have flashed in front of me, whisked by in a smear of color and I have enough time to think "oh, shit" before shoving that fear away and acting to prevent or deflect most of the danger. My shrink has called this "compartmentalizing" and aparently I'm great at it. Unfortunately that emotion usually presents itself later at the least opportune time.

I find it imortant to designate care givers because we have so many children. I'm not sure how other moms handle this, but I have this need to designate which kids are which adult's responsibility any time we get out of the car or leave a building. Because parking lots and crowd are dangerous for tiny kids. The problem is when the adults don't pay enough attention.

This first time we had a miscommunication, my son wound up running towards a busy street. He thought he was playing and running around our parallel parked car. Of course he didn't notice the busy road, or the oncoming traffic. We had stopped in between the parked cars, to say goodbye to my mom, her boyfriend, and my sister after having dinner with them. Just as I looked at my husband and said "Where's Liam" we all saw him (then 3) running around the front corner of the car towards the street. Luckily, my moms boyfriend was the farthest from us, and being a quick thinking guy, he ran in the opposite direction around the car, sweeping up my son just before he ran out into the road. Definitely an oh shit moment. This being the first time I'd been exposed to one of my kids almost getting creamed,   I didn't even know what to say. I wound up just looking over at him and nodding, inadequately speechless. I vowed then to be better prepared.

The second time left me feeling just as guilty, powerless and angry at myself. My daughter, then about a year old,  fell off a step at a friends house. Literally, one step. About nine inches. In full view of three adults. Of course, she fell backwards smacking her head on the tile floor. First she started crying and then she siezed up and stopped breathing. This was a great time to push away that oh shit feeling. My husband had headed upstairs to get her pacifier before he knew she was really hurt. I told our friend to call 911, and laid her on the kitchen cabinet to start CPR. In my head all I could think about was our First Resonder class teacher in college saying "if you have to start CPR, they're already dead."  Of course while I was trying to remember the number of compressions for each breath  she started breathing again on her own. Fast forward to me bawling over her in the ER while she played happily as if nothing ever happened.

This experience also left me a little empowered. I'm not happy at all that she was hurt, but it is a bit comforting that when she needed help, I could remember what to do.

So today, we went out to feed the horses, and my daughter trailed along. To feed them, we have to roll a 2000lb. round bale of hay about ten feet and then toss a heavy metal ring around it. We had rolled the hay out (our tractor is too small to lift one up) and I was standing by my daughter about eight feet from the bale, while my husband rolled the ring over to drop down around the hay bale. If you cant see this in your mind, google bale ring feeder. Our baby horse was on the far side of the bale so I told my husband not to drop the feeder ring onto her. I wasnt' paying attention to him, because my daughter began picking up handfulls of dirt and yelling "a me!" which means "look at me".  When the feeder ring hit the ground, it scared our other three adult horses into running right at us. Lady, our paint mare who is approximately 1200lbs spooked toward us and I could see her whole body jump sideways with all four hooves off the ground. Her right side was toward us and she angled to run away from the bale, right into us. I had a moment to think oh shit, and pivoted to be between the horse and my tiny daughter. She screamed and I closed my eyes and just breathed, waiting for Lady to smack into me. I have no idea how she avoided us. If she hadn't, it would have been BAD. Instead she brushed right by me out into the pasture without a sound.

So I guess the message here is to just breathe but maybe not with my eyes closed this time. I can't wait our entire lives for the next awful thing to happen or not. I'd could get too caught up waiting for the next fall, danger, injury, or accident.And so could you. I can't always keep the kids out of the pasture with the horses, I can just hope that they are all smart enough not to hurt or be hurt by each other.