I was reading Vicki Iovine's book The Girlfriends' Guide to Toddlers last night and found a very interesting paragraph. First let me say that I adore this woman's books. If you have ever been pregnant or better yet, are expecting your first right now, The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy is one of the best and funniest books around. A list of Iovine's many books can be viewed here.
Anyway back to this great paragraph. She was talking about keeping your children safe and how sometimes God gives us freebies. These are times when our children should have been seriously hurt (or worse, gulp) usually because of our own stupidity or carelessness, but somehow no harm comes to them. After a freebie, we must learn to never be careless in that way again, Iovine says. It is a second chance gift from God. The example she uses is how she turned to see her toddler grab the coffee mug from the edge of the table and spill it all over his face. She watched with horror knowing he would be seriously scalded and she couldn't reach him in time! She ran to him and grabbed him up only to discover that the coffee was cold. What if he had found that cup an hour earlier? Coffee cups were never left on the table edge again. She had learned her lesson. This made me think about the freebies I've been given. The one that came to mind first was when I took Nate up to Ava's prechool for their Easter egg hunt. I got so wrapped up in watching Ava hunt eggs on the playground, that I completely FORGOT Nate was there too, and I did not watch him for a solid 10 minutes. The horror I felt after realizing that my child had been wandering unsupervised around play equipment that could have seriously hurt him seared a lesson into my brain. This got me to wondering what freebies other parents have experienced. It can be embarassing to admit these, but if anyone wants to share a freebie, then post away.
1 comment:
I think the closest I came to a "freebie" was when I was babysitting a few years ago. I don't remember how old the infant was, but she was getting teeth and starting to chew, well, gnaw on stuff. Her mom left some melba toast and told me to let her have it as a snack. I didn't really think this was the best choice, but I think her mom was to frugal to buy the special baby cookies. So against my better judgement I gave her the melba toast which broke apart and then a piece got lodged in her throat - that baby was choking! I grabbed her, flipped her over, and gave her a firm whap on the back - just like they teach you in First Aid/CPR and the toast flew right out. whew! close one.
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