My family and I traveled to our parents homes for the holidays this year. It's fun for the boys to see their grandparents; also great for my wife and I to catch up with our family. In November we had just returned home from seeing the grandparents. As usual, we end up packing half our house for only a three day trip; when we return home, we end up bringing back even more things. Generally I will go ahead and unpack the van, while my wife gets the boys settled in after a long car ride. After the van was unpacked and the boys were fed, my wife and I finally were able to sit on the couch and put our feet up after our long day. Unfortunately, our night was just getting started.
My youngest son was 10 months old at that time, and my oldest son was 4 years old. My youngest is just crawling and the boys love chasing each other around the house. After a long car ride, it's like all their energy has been bottled up for hours. So they let it all out once they get in the house and are able to stretch out. My wife and I were sitting on the couch chatting, while the boys were playing in the kitchen. When we're sitting in our house, for the most part we have a very good view of the kitchen and can see the boys very well. You must go through the kitchen to get to the basement in our house. The boys love going down to the basement because the play room is down their and they have way too many toys to play with down there. There is no door leading to the basement steps, so we put a baby get up that you have to swing to open. There is no way for the boys to open the gate unless it weren't shut by us. You can probably guess what I'm about to say next!
I had gone down the basement steps multiple times to put some of our luggage away and some of our clothes. I'm not sure how it was missed, I played through the scenario many times in my head. Unfortunately, that gate was not fully closed when I was finished putting our things away. As my wife and I were talking we had not noticed that our boys had made it over to the basement steps. I remember my oldest son yell out "hey mommy", and after that we heard our 10 month old rolling down a flight of 12 steps.
I've never seen my very pregnant wife run that fast in my life. She sprinted towards the stairs and I was running right behind her. That was probably the longest 5 seconds of my life. When our oldest son called out, my wife and I knew something was wrong. We looked at each other and we both knew that we had not checked the steps before we sat down to take a break. I think we were already running as he was rolling down the steps, we did not see him but we heard him hit the bottom. Our steps are not carpeted, they are wooden steps. After my son hit the ground, we immediately heard him start crying. I've honestly never been so happy to hear my son cry before. As we came down the steps, it was like a war zone. There was a decent amount of blood coming from his mouth and a lot on the floor. The baby was screaming, my wife was crying, my oldest son was freaking out as well. Just a very scary scene that will never leave my memory. My son had four teeth at the time, two on the top and bottom. As I checked him over, I could tell that one tooth on the bottom row was pushed very far forward. My wife and I cleaned him up and then packed the family back in the van and took him to Urgent Care.
The Urgent Care was about 30 minutes away, it was operated by the Children's Hospital near our town. I had so many thoughts running through my mind as I drove to the hospital. Does my son have a concussion? Will I be questioned by the police when we get to the hospital? Will my wife be mad at me for leaving that gate open? Just many thoughts in my head as I was rushing over to the hospital. Once we got to the hospital, the staff was very professional and brought our son back right away. Thankfully, the only damage my son had was his tooth and a swollen lip. My wife and I were so thankful!! We've taken my son to a pediatric dentist a few times since the fall. If you were to see my son smile at you today, he will have one crooked tooth on the bottom. But he would give you a big smile, for he survived a fall that could have been devastating.
My wife and I now check the gait at least three times an hour it seems like. We know that he could have had a lot more problems than just a messed up tooth. I also know that Christ is looking after my family. The Lord was with my wife and I as we were taking care of our son that night. Even though it was a tense situation, I just felt a lot of peace. I felt like God had control of the situation, and I was able to stay very calm for the most part. Some people may call it luck. If that was just luck, then I guess I'm just a really lucky guy. My wife and I know that the Father was protecting our son that. We don't call that luck, we call that faith.
Exodus 14:14 says "the Lord fights for you; you need only to be still". I've decided that throughout the rest of my life, I'm going to let God fight these battles. All these situations that come up and test us. Don't get me wrong, Kara and I could have easily avoided this situation. We took every precaution, we crossed all the T's and dotted every i after he fell down. The one thing that we didn't forget, was to include the Father. We silently prayed during our drive over to the hospital and continue to pray for our little boy. The Lord encouraged us the following days as we both felt very discouraged about parenting honestly. We feel like we are very blessed to come out with a healthy baby. I'm sure there are many stories similar to ours and probably a lot worse. So remember, the Lord fights for you. Even in those small situations, just let Him be a part of that situation. He wants to fight for you, so let Him. I've found that He ALWAYS wins, even if we don't like the outcome.
Have a blessed day!
-Aaron
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