A Traumatic Experience

Today I learned a big lesson through a traumatic experience. 

A few months ago I learned my first lesson to no longer put Carter on our bed. He had become a little more mobile at that point (though not yet crawling) and I was afraid that he would roll off the bed. Well, even though I kept my eyes on him almost constantly, it only took one second of me turning my head for him to roll off landing flat on his back. That was horrible, but he was okay. He only cried for about a minute or two and it was more out of shock than actually being hurt. 

Well, today's incident added a whole new level to falling off the bed. I had been out running errands with Carter stopping by the church and then the grocery store before heading home. My usual routine is to take Carter up first and then come back down to get grocery's. So, like usual, I sat him down (well away from the door) with his sippy cup and snacks. He was occupied so I ran back down bringing up grocery's. I got them all up but then had some boxes of stuff I needed to bring up last. As I walked out of the apartment, I know I closed the door, but not all of the way. There was still enough of the door sticking out that Carter was able to grab the edge and pull it open. Can you see where my story is leading???

I'm at the bottom of the stairs holding my four boxes when I look up and see my precious little boy looking down at me from the top of the stairs, putting his little hand down trying to reach the next step. My heart suddenly stopped as I see my little boy falling head over heal down the stairwell (and if you know our stairs, you know they are very steep). I yelled "NO CARTER!!", dropped everything in my arms and sprinted up the stairs to grab him as fast as I could. 

I caught him when he was about half way down. He was of course crying and all I could do was hold him tight, rock back and forth, and tell him it was okay. I just sat there with him for about 2 minutes looking him over with my teary eyes to make sure he was okay. I took him inside and for the next 15 minutes all I could do was shakily tell him how sorry I was, that I would never let that happen again and thanking God that my baby was okay. 

The image of him toppling down keeps replaying in my mind over and over making me feel like a horrible mother. But I know that kids do get hurt and that as parents, you can not protect them all the time.....but I could have at least prevented this one. I feel so awful!! Of course Carter only cried for maybe 3 minutes or so and then was completely fine wanting to play. I think it was much worse for me than him. And now I know to always close the door all the way before going down the stairs. 

Patience

Being a parent is all about patience. Scott and I have recently discovered how true this is with Carter's recent accomplishment of crawling. Yes, everyone applaud him as we are very proud of him, but it's also opened up a whole new world to him and loads of patience for us. 

Before, when he was just rolling around like a bug, he could only go so far and get into so much. Now that he's crawling, he is pretty much everywhere and into everything. We find ourselves constantly telling him, "no touch!" and redirecting him somewhere else. Of course, he turns himself right back around and slowly reaches that little sausage hand of his back to the forbidden object as his eyes are glued on us to see if we're watching.  The first 5-10 times we find that we are turning away with laughter as we think, "what a stinker" and crack up. But by about the 20th time, your patience starts to wear on you. 

Scott and I were so excited for him to crawl and would make a point to work with him on it everyday. Now that he can, we sometimes look at each other and wonder why we pushed for it so much. :) Of course seeing our little one accomplish a huge task and discover more of the world around him is so much better than him being stuck in one spot. We are just finally seeing that swatting his hand saying "no touch" is only the beginning of our loving and patience demanding parent/child relationship.