Today, I’m sharing my most horrid, terrifying moment as a mother. Feel free to do the same in the comments below …
During the year that Hubs and I lived in San Antonio, we spent a lot of time debating whether to buy a house there, or whether to return to Arkansas. Each weekend, we toured open houses in San Antonio, finding something wrong with each one. Clearly, I thought, this was a sign that we should return to the Land of the Hogs.
Anyway, one Sunday afternoon, right after church, we dropped by a cute, newly renovated cottage in an older part of town. Tootie was 2; the E-man only 4 months.
I decided to venture up to the finished attic, with a bored Tootie in tow. Only when we were about to go back downstairs did I notice that there wasn’t a banister. Worried that my tot would fall, I scooped her up and started down.
Anyone who knows me can guess what happened next.
One of my strappy little sandals wobbled and as my weight shifted, I lost my balance. As I hurtled forward, my poor girl was catapulted from my arms. I had just enough time to shriek before I ping-ponged between the walls and tumbled after her.
Poor Hubs had just rounded a corner when he heard all the commotion. Just as he arrived at the foot of the stairs, Tootie landed at his feet, stunned. And then his wife rolled down the last few steps and landed in a crumpled heap right behind his daughter.
Tootie, thankfully, was fine. But every time I looked at her mangled little sunglasses, I cried, thinking of how much worse it could have been. My ankle swelled a bit and my knee throbbed, but within a few days I was back to normal.
Needless to say — we didn’t buy that house.
Tootie, mere hours before the incident
Like a renegade... 
Shortly after moving into our new house, I was off somewhere organizing something while Chris installed the baby gate at the top of our stairs. Ava was not walking yet, but she was crawling everywhere. For some reason, Chris forgot his screwdriver and ran down to the garage to get it, leaving our daredevil child alone upstairs in the bedroom. Naturally, she crawled too far too fast and fell down the stairs, hitting her head on the edge of the molding. Oh, the irony.
Thank god she was OK, and (hopefully) her little brain didn’t suffer from that!!
LikeLike
In the theme of new houses… we had just moved into our house. It was going to be the first night we were to sleep in it. I was pregnant and had been moving boxes all day. Peanut, 22 months, was at school then at a friend’s house. We got her shortly after dinner. She was home maybe 20 minutes before my husband took some bug killer away from her. She had it all over her hands. We washed her hands and quickly forgot about it. At about 2 that night, she started vomiting. My husband mentioned the poison so we called poison control. Turns out this is a very harmful kind of poison that was no longer made. Poison control read off a list of side affects which I don’t remember now but I am sure had something to do with DIEING We called an ambulance to take us to the hospital.
Turns out it was just a virus. There was some sort of special test to check for something odd that turned up negative.
You can be sure we made a big sweep of the house the next day to check for any other presents the previous owner left us.
It was a nightmare. I was immobilized with fear.
LikeLike
Oh, man that must have been terrible!
LikeLike
Mine would have to be the year we went to Disney for Bear’s 5th birthday.
She got sick the first night and we took her to the Dr. the next morning where we were told she had strep. She had a high fever, getting sick at her tummy and would not eat. DANG – her first visit to the magic kingdom and she was sick.
After the 4th day we thought surely she is feeling better and I got on to her for being fussy. Not 5 seconds after me scolding her for fussing – she got sick at her tummy all over the place. MOM OF THE YEAR DID NOT GO TO ME!
LikeLike