As you'll see, it's a miracle my first-born made it to adulthood. Through no fault of his own, he was my guinea pig. It's too bad parents aren't provided with a practice child before having the real thing. I hope by sharing some of my dumber moments as a parent, I can help other new parents steer clear of some potential disasters.
If It's Broken, Fix It or Junk It
One night I awoke to a strange gurgling sound coming from my young son's room. The binding on his blanket had pulled loose a few days before, but I hadn't gotten around to repairing it yet. The odd sound was him choking. His head had slipped through the gap between the binding and the blanket, and when he rolled over, the twisted fabric tightened around his throat. After insuring he was OK, I fixed the blanket. It took all of five minutes.
Don't Panic
Take the advice from “A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” and don't panic.
My son was learning to climb. This was in the early days of child car seats, so maybe it's harder to do these days, but he managed to wriggle himself out of his car seat. When I looked in the rear view mirror and saw him out and about, I followed my natural instinct. It was the worst reaction I could have had. I hit the brakes and sent him sailing. Fortunately, we were in a residential area and not going very fast. He suffered a bruise or two, but that was all.
A couple of years later, this same child jumped from our hearth, slipped and cracked his head open on the sharp edge of a coffee table. He wasn't too concerned about it until I panicked and started shrieking. The poor child must have figured he was on the verge of death and joined in. The two of us stood there screaming in harmony while my husband calmly got a washcloth and pressed it against the cut to stop the bleeding. Two lessons for the price of one. When we returned from the emergency room with his head full of stitches, the coffee table was sticking out of the dumpster in the back alley, placed there by my husband. I learned to control my reactions a little better and we padded every possible sharp corner in our house. It wasn't pretty, but it was a whole lot safer.
Devise a Code Word
This idea was not my own, but it's a good one. Before the day comes when you need it, develop a secret family password. Your children should be told never to go anywhere with someone unless that person can supply the secret password. If you should need someone to pick your child up from soccer practice at the last minute, then reveal the password to that person. You might even want to test your child to see if your instructions were really understood.
One rainy day, my children accepted a ride home from the school bus stop with a person they knew lived nearby, but didn't know well. Meanwhile, I came home from work a minute or so later and sat waiting at the bus stop for what seemed an eternity. Their understanding of what constitutes a stranger didn't match mine. Needless to say, they didn't make that mistake twice…
Not-So-Obvious Hazards
My son loved to read and one Christmas we purchased a pair of cheap bed lamps that clipped onto the headboard; one for him and one for his sister. We didn't think too much about where we hung the lamps until a month or so later when we found scorch marks on the curtains that hung above my son's bed. We checked my daughter's curtains and they were also covered with scorch marks. Realizing that not only had we lucked out and not set the house on fire, the bulbs were obviously exposed and very hot. That's when we discovered the best location for the cheap lamps - the dumpster.
My son (yes, the same one!), two at the time, decided to get up in the middle of the night to play with the loading mechanism on a “safety” injector razor dispenser he found in the bathroom. He successfully ejected a razor blade and cut his hands in several places before waking us up for a bandaid. Safety is a relative term. Used correctly by an adult, the injector blades are safe enough, but clearly not for a child.
In Conclusion
Don't take anything for granted when it comes to your kids. They are curious, clever and totally ignorant of the hazards of everyday household items. And they are way too trusting of adults. When you tell them to stay away from strangers, they think you mean a shady-looking character holding a paper bag that says “candy” on it.
Your children deserve your utmost efforts to keep them safe. I hope you have a little more wisdom now, a whole lot more insight than I did, and at least as much luck.
