The Importance of Securing Furniture

I have had two huge mishaps with my four children, and thankfully both turned out okay.  The first was with my oldest.  He was about four or five, and we were at the beach.  We were done for the day, and went inside to rinse the sand off and change out of our wet swimsuits.  He got done first, and stepped outside of the shower stall. I told him to stay where I could see his feet (never would I do this now, but way back then it seemed reasonable).  He left.  I went after, with mere seconds passing.  I spent a lot of time walking up and down the beach walk looking for him, and panic set in.  A little while later (who knows how much actual time passed, for me it seemed like a really long time) two elderly women came walking with him, each holding his hand.  He'd followed them all the way down the boardwalk and to the parking lot area.  I was sobbing by that point and just very happy to see him.  It could have been exponentially, horribly worse.  I still shudder just thinking about it.

My oldest at the age he was in the story

The second mishap was with my youngest.  About five years ago, he was sound asleep in the middle of my bed (he was an infant).  I decided to rearrange the furniture in the room while he was sleeping.  I placed the television on the flat, sturdy platform of the foot of our bed so I could move the dresser.  Big mistake. We're not talking the thin, flat-screened TV's, which we have since replaced that dinosaur TV with (though that would be bad enough), we're talking the big, thick, solid and very heavy old-fashioned kind of televisions that were difficult to pick up. Somewhere along the way, in a silent move that I never even heard, that TV got knocked off of the foot board of the bed and was lying less than an inch from my infant's beautiful soft, newborn head (that would likely not have sustained a knock from something as heavy as that TV in a good way).  I cried.  I cried and held him (yes, he was still asleep, but I held him anyway), and I never, never moved furniture when he was in the room again.

My youngest sleeping on our bed when he was an infant.

It is at the risk of huge embarrassment and humiliation, I note those two things, but I think it is important to share our mistakes publicly so others can learn from them. I hope someone will learn from mine.

What made me think of these things, is that yesterday at Simply Vintageous......by Suzan, I came across this article, "Be With Me. Just for Today," and my heart just ached for the mom in that story who didn't have as happy of an ending as I did.  I hope you will take a look at her blog post and note the importance of securing furniture, even the small pieces, if you have a small child in the home.  The life you save, could be a child of your own.  My husband will be strapping all of our furniture down this week (he's on vacation) because we read the article.  The importance of doing so, really cannot be overrated.  Thank you, Suzan for sharing the article, and thank you to the blog owner of Love, Light, Laughter, and Chocolate -- One Mom's Journey for blogging about it.  Our lives have been impacted, and we are taking active measures because of that article, and I am guessing others will do the same.