Thursday, April 2, 2009

Say your prayers!



(These pictures have nothing to do with the story, but I think they're cute. :-) )

We went to La Grande to see Mickey yesterday and to run to the Summerville storage shed for Dad and Marcia. I decided to say a prayer for a safe trip, though I usually don't since it's such a short one. Turns out that that was a good idea, and a huge blessing. In Summerville it was freezing so Kareli was fussing while I looked for Marcia’s laptop, and Kayin played in the yard. I finally found the laptop and called for Kayin (who I saw still in the yard), then went back to get Kareli. When I came back to the front I looked for Kayin and was completely shocked to see him sitting next to the fish pond crying, soaking wet from head to toe. He'd fallen in, but luckily got himself back out (the pond is 2 or 3 feet deep. I thought it'd be empty so I wasn't worried about it. It was actually full to overflowing with melted snow water) The guy who lives there was working in the garage with power tools, so I hadn’t heard a thing. I ran and grabbed Kayin up and the poor kid was frozen, his lips were blue, and he couldn’t stop shivering and crying. I ran and asked the guy for some towels, then stripped Kayin on his porch and dried him off. I was near panicked from the thought of what could have happened and because he wouldn’t stop shivering. Luckily I had a blanket in the car so I bundled him up and put him and Kareli in the car with the heater on full blast. I started home but only made it to Imbler before Kareli was crying from being hungry, and poor Kayin was still blue. I pulled over and nursed Kareli, and had Kayin crawl to the front seat so the heater could be directly on him. Then I remembered that I’d packed spare clothes in an emergency diaper bag; what a huge blessing. So as soon as Kareli finished I dressed Kayin, then wrapped him in his blanket, Kareli’s blanket, and my coat and directed all the heat to him. Still, we were all the way back to La Grande (15 minutes) before he stopped shivering. What a terrifying situation, for both of us. I was shaking the whole way home, thinking What if… I called Mickey and told him, so he had hot chocolate waiting for Kayin when we got to his work (another blessing; he just happened to have cocoa packets and a cup in his car, that he kept forgetting to clean out. God was really watching over us). Kayin finally warmed up while we waited to go to lunch, but his hands were still freezing for over an hour. He told daddy what happened (he was crying too hard to tell me in the car); he’d been looking at the ice on the water and tried to push it and fell in on his head. He got water in his mouth but spit it out, then got out and called for mommy and cried. Thank heavens he didn't inhale the water from the shock of the cold. Hopefully hopefully hopefully he learned to NEVER go near any water unless we’re with him; we emphasized that repeatedly. My poor baby. This day was traumatizing for both of us, but full of enormous blessings. Always say your prayers!