Death Defying

Okay, some of my family members have talked about near misses with children, and divine intervention. I thought I would write about my second son....the one child I'm sure has a guardian angel.
J** was quite hyperactive as a child. He was constant motion, and was always getting in to things. Here are a few things that gave me gray hair when he was young:
--Ate part of a poisonous plant, I had to call poison control
--Stuck his foot down the heater vent. I tried everything I could think of to get it out, including dishwashing soap, but it wouldn't budge. Finally I decided to be a bad mom and just gave it a good tug. Smarted a little...but did the trick.
--Climbed on the bottom drawer of a dresser and pulled it over on him.
--Got in to a 72 hour emergency kit and ate some water purification tablets. (poison control and I became fast friends)
--Climbed our back yard fence...went to the neighbor's yard...found a ladder up against the house....climbed up on to their gravel roof and started running back and forth. By the time I got to him, he was running back and forth on the slippery gravel yelling, "Look at me Mom! Look at me!"
--Ran from me in the airport......went inside an open elevator just as it was closing. Luckily he stayed inside until it came back down, or I would have never been able to find him.
--Ran ahead of me at the department store and climbed up on the escalator handrail and rode it laying head down, all the way to the lower floor.

--When we lived in China, we had our church services in a member's home. They lived on the 12th floor of an apartment building. One week after church was over we were gathering our things and taking care of last minute business when J*** slipped out unnoticed. He was about 4 years old at the time. We always took our shoes off in their home, so he found his shoes, put them on, and went down the elevator. He went outside, across the street, and out on to a frozen canal nearby. There was an outlet where water emptied in to the canal. I guess this hole looked interesting to him, because he walked across the frozen canal toward the hole. I had just bought him a new coat the same week. I think the water coming out of the outlet was warmer than the frozen canal because the ice near the hole was thinner. He broke through the ice and fell in to the freezing water. A taxi driver nearby saw this happen and went to save him. J***'s new coat still had the sizing in it and it kept him afloat. Some boys from church brought him upstairs and we put him in a warm bathtub, then put dry clothes on him. We put him in the car with the heater going full blast and took him home. He loves to swim today, so I don't think the event phased him much.

---Another time while we were living in China, my husband watched the kids during his lunch hour while I ran an errand. When I came home, he went back to work. I saw that he had opened one window in the bedroom. There was no screen on the window, and there was a 23 story drop to the ground below. It was warm in the room, so I left the window open, but kept an eagle eye on it and wouldn't let the kids get anywhere near it. Unbeknownst to me, my husband had also opened the window in the other bedroom. Suddenly I heard my daughter say, "J***, you scare me to death!". I jumped up and ran to the room just in time to see J*** coming in through the bedroom window. He had gone out on the ledge (which was about 2 feet wide) and had walked back and forth the length of the window. I could see the foot prints in the dust on the window ledge. I closed the window and sealed them shut with heavy tape, and we never opened them again while we lived in that apartment. I took J*** in to the kitchen and got an egg out of the refrigerator. I said, "Here is J*** walking on the window ledge." I walked the egg on the top of the refrigerator door. I then let the egg drop to the ground and splat on the tile. I said, "Oh! Look what could happen to J**** if he walks out on the ledge again!". I was so sure this lesson made a deep impression on him. Later that day I heard a noise in the kitchen. I went in to find J*** dropping eggs off the top of the refrigerator door.

--One day while the Chinese babysitter was there, he ran in to the bathroom, locked the door, and filled up the bathtub. The babysitter couldn't get him to unlock the door. Suddenly he got soap in his eyes and started screaming! She thought he was drowning and about had a heart attack! He finally opened the door for her.

Needless to say, there were many more things that happened. I often told my husband that I felt that if I could just keep J*** alive til he was an adult, I would feel I had done my duty as a parent. He has calmed down as a teenager and is very pleasant. Thank goodness.