The Scare of My Life

As most of you know, we are currently living in a temporary apartment in downtown Boston, until we move into our house. It is more or less, like staying in a hotel but with a little more space. As a matter of fact, Noah refers to it as "the hotel." We have some of our personal items with us, but it is fully furnished with stuff that isn't ours. So, the territory isn't as familiar as it would be in our own house.

At home, in your own space, you get used to what the dangers are...what the kids have a tendency to get into and what things they don't bother with. When you plan and decorate your own house, you do it with your children in mind. You choose things based on safety as well as functionality. You tether book shelves to the wall, install baby gates by the stairs, etc. Well, let's just say that this place was NOT designed with children in mind. The coffee table and end tables have the pointiest corners I have ever seen. The living room chairs have legs that curve outwards from the line of the chair itself, so one of us stubs a toe at least once a day. The dining room table is GLASS. I can't keep the fingerprints off it! We are nineteen floors up, and all of the windows open wide up (no screens)!! Kevin managed to lock most of the windows with some little mechanisms he found somewhere in the apartment. However, there was still something that we missed.

I was sitting in the living room chair, at a 90 degree angle to Bekah, who was standing on the sofa. The sofa is up against a wall, with a window behind it. I was literally only two feet away from her, so I didn't think too much of her standing there. I glanced away from her for a few seconds, and when I looked back, I saw her with the cord from the mini blind wrapped around her neck and she was gagging and trying to catch her breath. I screamed, and bolted over to untangle her. She cried and told me, "Bekah, bobo neck, hanging." Let me tell you, I was shaking in my slippers! I kissed and hugged her about 800 times that day. I didn't let her out of my sight. I couldn't believe that something like that could have happened to MY child! It made me realize how easily we get lulled into a false sense of security, and how quickly things can go wrong.

It turns out that all of the blinds in this apartment are roller blinds. They all have a plastic chain type cord on them. They aren't separate strings....the are a continuous loop. Bekah just looped one of them around her neck while standing and watching television...thankfully, she did it while I sat right next to her and not while I was in the next room.

I am already uptight enough. I didn't need that to happen! Now everything looks like a potential danger. It probably isn't OK to lock them in their rooms until they are 18.....even if it is for their own safety!

Hopefully, it will get better with time....