Someone Is Watching Over My Baby

What mom hasn't left her kid for a minute to run into another room to get something? I think most, if not all moms have done that. A few weeks ago, Jenna and I came back from running some errands. I put her into her walker in the living room, because she actually can't get into much that way versus her crawling around. I then got my groceries out of the car, making several quick trips to do so. The entire time, Jenna was just fine, as she has been on many, many occasions similar to this. I then left for about a minute to move the car from the garage (easier to unload Jenna and groceries) back onto the driveway so that Braden could then pull our car into the garage.

When I came back in, as I approached the living room from the laundry room, I could see that the walker was not moving, and my first thought was that Jenna had gotten stuck somehow, since there were a few bags and her diaper bag on the floor. As I got closer, I gasped as I realized why she was stuck. I obviously couldn't take a picture of it the moment that it happened, but I took pictures after the fact to illustrate what I think happened.

What I later discovered were the wooden kitchen table slats (two of them, to lengthen the table when you have company) had come crashing down onto the back of the walker. Jenna was miraculously unharmed, and was actually grinning at me, although unable to move her head at all, when I walked in. What I think happened, based on her position, was that she was reaching for her diaper bag, which was directly in front of her. To reach for it, she leaned as far forward as she could go, but as she did so, the walker moved backwards enough to push the slats towards the wall, thus making them fall forward on top of the walker. Thank goodness she was leaning forward!!! I cannot stress enough how absolutely amazed I was that she was totally unharmed. It missed her completely, even though she could not move an inch without coming into contacts with the slats. And she was giggling!! You can bet that I was very shaken up, and the first thing I did (after removing her from danger, of course) was to say a prayer of thanks that she was kept safe. The thing that kills me is that before bringing groceries or bags in, I always do a quick check to make sure nothing is left out that she shouldn't be getting into. In this case, what had happened was that the slats *were* behind her high chair, but a couple of days prior to this, I had moved the high chair so we could start putting boxes there for the move. This particular day, a whole bunch of boxes had just been taken up to the new place, and so the room was already different, and for some odd reason the slats seemed to blend into the background very well (even though the wall and the slats are different colors), and I didn't even notice them.

Here are some different views. I kept everything on the floor the same and tried to recreate how the slats were positioned:




And then here is Jenna in her walker, so you can get an idea of how she fits into it. She's leaning forward a bit in the first picture, but in the second one, you can see how she normally sits in it, and she is TALL for her age, so when she actually stands up...you get the idea.



Even remembering it now, it gives me the chills. And just yesterday, when I was waiting to turn left on a busy road, a motorcyclist wasn't paying attention, didn't notice I was stopped (our brake lights *are* working, and my turn signal had been on for a full minute) and had to brake hard and swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid smashing into us. Luckily, he didn't lose his balance, although I saw that he very nearly did, and also luckily for him, there was enough space for him to do so without any cars hitting him from the opposite direction.

We've had a few close calls lately. We're grateful to still be in one piece!