"Oh, God, what now?" moments with your kids.. Mine was terrifying--really!

[blondeatlast]

This happened about 5 years ago, at LAX in the Southwest terminal. I was in the bathroom stall, mid-stream, with my just-started-to-be-really-mobile son, when he BOLTED.

I was too shocked to eke out a scream or anything. A woman walking into the bathroom at the time grabbed him and held him despite his fists pounding--and she APOLOGIZED for doing so. This bathroom was NOT heavily used--we were the only two in it at the time.

I was sobbing uncontrollably and thanked her profusely. She said it was pure instinct--she couldn't explain her very appropriate reaction.

I'm sure we've all had one of those; what's yours?

[Sticky]

1. It's hard to pick just one...

but 2 years ago my son, who has trouble with reality, watched the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and was so impressed by Jim Carey's abilty to chew glass that he grabbed a lightbulb sitting on an end table and took a big bite!
I was only feet away from him but it could have been a mile. Even the Bionic Woman could not have gotten to him in time.

Blood poured out of his mouth and I raced him to the hospital where he needed several stitches. For ages I recalled that moment and played it back in slow motion....I've come to the conclusion that there are times when our kids are going to give us heart attacks and we better be able to recover FAST!

[oregonjen]

8. Oh, My, Gawd! I knew there was a reason I don't want my kids to watch

that version of the Grinch. I'm glad he was okay. That would be pretty darn scary!

[Chalco]

2. When my daughter was just 2 she attempted to stick her

hand in the coffee grinder. Luckily the thing is rigged so it will only start if the top is firmly closed so she was unable to do it. Curiosity sure is a strong impulse!

[SoCalDem]

3. My 2 yr old and 3 yr old vanished from the back yard..

One minute they were there, and then next...poof!!

I ran all over the place looking for them, and a neighborhood that was usually teeming with kids was like a scene from a "day after the bomb" movie.. streets were totally deserted.. I ran to get my friend, and she and I drove up and down each street, hollering for them. (The was pre-911), and we lived in a town with less than 4K people.. Barney Fife would have been a step UP in the sheriff dept..

I ran back into my house, hoping they had come back, but no luck. so I had to call the police..and my husband who had gone to work that Saturday morning..

our yard had a 7 FT tall wrought iron fence with spikey things on top..on 3 sides..the back fence was a stone fence about 4 ft high...and beyond that fence?? 25 miles of scrub mesa,& tumbleweeds 4 ft tall, and more...all the way to the Manzano mtns...and rattlesnakes, and coyotes, and wolves, and cougar...

The cops arrived pretty quickly and while my friend and I were giving them information, we heard laughing in the back yard.. THERE THEY WERE..all dirty and scratched up..


They had "gone to look for the cows"..some farmer grazed his cattle back there and occasionally we could hear the cowbells..so these two little rats had climbed that wall, and been wandering around on the mesa for almost 3 hours before they came home..

How they could even tell which way to go is a mystery to me...even today..I was a basket case, and was sure that they were gone forever..

[phylny]

4. Our middle daughter, who is now 16,

had an adventure one afternoon.

We took a family trip to the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois when she was about two years old. We were having a great day, and really enjoyed the sea lion tank because you can view it from above and below.

After seeing them from below, we walked up the stairs and started toward another exhibit. It was the old story - I thought my husband had her, he thought I had her. We walked away from the sea lions toward another exhibit, and about 1.5 minutes into our walk we looked and realized she wasn't with us. How could we be this stupid? I don't know.

All I could think was that someone abducted her and she was GONE. I was panicked, ran around calling for her, and people around us were helping us. Just when I was about to start screaming at the top of my lungs from crying, we saw a family standing at the entrance to the sea lion exhibit, calmly holding her hand. I ran to her, and they said they found her downstairs - she was so entranced with the "underview" exhibit that she ran down to see it again.

We were incredibly grateful to the family that found her, and the mother said, "She didn't look like she was with anyone, so I figured we'd wait and you'd come back eventually."

I wouldn't even let my brain go in the other direction, thinking about what could have happened if the wrong kind of person decided to "help."

[SW FL Dem]

5. I was shopping with my son in his stroller.

He was 18 or 20 months old. I had just changed him and I didn't strap him in securely (the buckle wasn't completely tight), I was looking at some clothes and when I turned to check on him, he was gone. I panicked and began screaming for him. He had crawled out of the stroller and was hiding from me under the round clothes rack. I finally heard a giggle and saw his shoe sticking out from under the rack. From then on, he had a stroller and a baby leash whenever we went out in public. When he got a little older and more responsible, the rule was that he always had to be close enough to me that I could touch him, if he wasn't, he knew he would get in trouble. I see parents letting their kids run all over the place, I know I am overprotective, but it scares me to see toddlers running loose in a public place where someone could easily grab them.

[fortyfeetunder]

6. An exasperated mom

My son bolts from me and throws the most gosh-awful tantrum, even at age 7

The most terrifying runaway experience was at 3YO he ran away from me at an amusement park. Spouse was elsewhere, came back, only to look 45 or so minutes, found the kid leaning against a fence, not in the least bit worried.

Then the tantrums, he only does this to me. This was a few months ago. I wanted to pick up a package at the mall after picking him up from school. He was getting mad because the package wasn't ready and he said it was close to 6 PM. Well, at 6PM (he's now understanding how to tell time), he goes into what I call a nuclear meltdown. Throws himself on the floor yelling and screaming. (yes, this is a 7YO boy) After I got the package, about 5 minutes later, I took his hand and told him that was the last time he was going to the mall with me for awhile until he learned how to be patient and wait.

He doesn't do this $*($& with my husband and I am beginning to resent it.

[phylny]

7. With the utmost respect, having worked with many children

in my career, I would suspect he's being reinforced somehow with you during these meltdowns in a way your husband is not reinforcing him for this behavior.

If he does not tantrum with your husband, try finding out why. How does your husband respond when your son is frustrated? Is it different than the way you respond?

By doing a sort of functional behavioral analysis (tracking what happens before these meltdowns with you versus your husband) you might gain some insight and see what's going on with your son. If he has the ability to hold it together with others, then he obviously HAS the ability somewhere within him to control himself.

On another vein, I suggest looking into his diet and making sure he has enough fat and protein, along with carbohydrates, to keep his blood sugar relatively stable - that 6 p.m. meltdown thing might be related to nutrition. Someone in my family had a child who had major meltdowns at about 4 p.m., and when we talked about the child's diet, we noticed a paucity of protein or fat, but plenty of carbs. No way can your body regulate itself without all three.

[SoCalDem]

9. Meet his rage with your "calm"..and speak in a low voice.

He will HAVE to stop screaming to hear what you are say9ing:evilgrin:..

My middle child was my difficult one, and when he would rant and rave, I would just stand there, and listen to him, and then when he slowed down or stopped to breathe, I would say.. "Now let's sit down, and you can tell me ...slowly, what you are so mad about.. You have every right to BE mad, but I also have every right to NOT agree with you :)

After he was done, he would usually be calmer, and then I would suggest to him that he write his "beefs" down, and we would discuss each one in detail..

Of course he never did, and later would come up and hug me and say he was sorry :evilgrin:

My friend used to be amazed at how her son's rages escalated, and mine calmed down, but then she realized that SHE would end up yelling too.:)

She tried my approach as an experiment, and it worked for her son too :)

[TrogL]

10. i get about one every thirty minutes

People wonder why I'm barking mad.

The emergency room people all know me by first name. Some of them think I work there.

Probably the worst one happened a long time ago. One daughter was just a toddler and looking out the screen window on a summer day. The screen was open. Suddenly I heard this allmight bang and she started howling. The window had come crashing down on her fingers. I checked it afterwards and simply don't see how it was possible.

Another time, one sliced her finger practically to the bone with a paring knife.

[CornField]

11. I've earned every gray hair on my head!

The oldest: Very early one morning while I was still sleeping, she got up and pulled out the taco fixings from the fridge. She then proceeded to create a "sofa taco" -- sour cream, salsa, cheese, lettuce, tomato, meat, etc.

The oldest: Decided my tank of brackish water puffers was dirty and dumped an entire bottle of dish washing liquid into it. Not only did everything in the tank die (including the tank & gear which could never again be soap free), but the filtration system served as a giant bubble maker. (Imagine washing machine overflow and what it would do to your carpets & floors.)

The oldest: Knew she wasn't allowed to cross the street without an adult. Still she and a school friend crossed without permission to pet a neighbor's dog. The dog was not nice and attacked her -- biting all the way through her lower lip and making a large puncture wound on the side of her neck. Thinking she would be in trouble for crossing the street, she hid behind bushes in the alley. Her friend (who we later rewarded with flowers and a new book) came and got me so I could take my daughter to the emergency room.

The middle girl: My youngest was about a month old when my middle daughter went missing. She had been angry with me because I needed to nurse the baby before I could play with her. When I was done feeding the baby, I couldn't find her. The oldest and I searched in and directly outside our house for 30 minutes -- couldn't find her. I phoned the police and we had everyone we knew (and a few we didn't) in the neighborhood searching for her. It was a couple of hours later before we found her -- in her older sister's bedroom. She had crawled into a large box, flipped it over and fell asleep.

The middle girl: When I was pregnant with her brother, the middle girl sat in the living room playing with an Easter basket. It was one of those plastic, woven things and she was having a great time putting things into it and taking them back out. I went to make lunch. The next thing I heard was a scream. She had evidentally started chewing on the side pieces -- which were plastic-covered wire. She must have pulled the wire with her teeth only to have it pop back into place -- going right through her lower lip in the process. I tried to put her in the car seat and take her to the emergency room, but I couldn't get the convertable car seat over her head with that basket attached. LOL! I finally called 911 and had two fire trucks and three police cars show up (I joke that they heard the report about a basket stuck on a child's face and simply had to come look.) A police officer had a pair of wire cutters and clipped the wire (removing the bulk of the basket), but then my daughter started pulling on the wire. We were getting into the ambulance when the wire finally backed itself out some... one of the EMTs grabbed it and eased it the rest of the way out of her lip.

Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. LOL!

[cally]

12. We had a double stroller at an amusement park

My eldest was probably 4 or 5 and would get in the stroller when asked. We were sitting at a closed outside restaurant and deciding where to go next. I put my 1 year old in the stroller, told my elder one to get in and headed quickly to the exit. We were pretty far when I looked down and realized I had left my eldest behind. I'm not sure how I could be so idiotic but I did it. We ran back and she was there. Two hapless security guards were trying to catch her and she was evading them. In a diferent light, it would be funny. A 4-5 year old outsmarting the adults. (She told me later that she knew she shouldn't go with strangers.) She saw us and ran to us. I think the security guards were grateful.

My eldest was scared to death of doctors and medical procedures. She slammed her finger and had to be taken to the emergency room. I went to a movie theater and found my husband because I refused to handle this by myself. I knew how bad this would be. We get there and my husband takes her in. They have to drill through the fingernail to relieve the pressure since her finger was swelling so badly. I heard the screaming from the waiting room so I go in. Literally, three adults are having to hold her down. She was a small 5 year old. The doctor told us she was the worst patient he had ever had.

[Ilsa]

13. Ah yes, what the parent of an autistic child goes through anytime we leave

the house. ANd people wonder why we don't get out more. Between that and the stares, it isn't much fun being out in public. I can't bear the feeling that my almost speechless child could get lost.

[yardwork]

14. My two-year old was hell on wheels when I was pregnant with his brother

He ran into a lake, straight out into the deep water, with me desperately wading behind him shouting for him to stop. He was almost over his head when a great big strong woman saw what was happening and plucked him out of the water. I was sure he would be drowned. I was so grateful to her!

When this same child was an infant he was leaning against the back of the couch banging on the window screen when it gave way, and he catapulted straight forward and out the window, right over the HVAC unit. I screamed and ran outside and found him, unscratched, in the one-foot space between the brick foundation and the huge sharp metal HVAC unit. I have no idea how he survived.

He's fourteen now and the most reliable, sweet, and responsible child in his 8th grade class. His younger brother, who was an incredibly easy baby, is now the one who is hell on wheels. Just goes to show....