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Never a dull moment in child-rearing years

Children are a blessing from the Lord, but there are those frightening moments that make you wonder if you'll survive raising your children.

Our oldest daughter had a freak bicycle accident at age five that lacerated her liver and put her in ICU for over a week. A horrible experience. Interestingly, now she's in med school.

Our second daughter slipped in the bathtub and bit a hole in her tongue large enough to place a Cheerio in. That was not pleasant, but we made it through that one, also. Now she's studying to be a speech pathologist.

Thankfully, we haven't had too much trauma with my third daughter. She's not boring by any means, but she's been spared the close calls.

Then there's my son and his litany of close calls. Jonathan had a bad digestive problem that stunted his early development, and then had a battle with croup at 13 months old. This was not croupy-sounding cough, but THE CROUP that slammed him in ICU, put him on the ventilator and caused serious breathing problems during his early years. Thankfully, as a robust teenager, he's much improved.

Now he can add a tornado to his list of close calls. On that recently stormy Wednesday, Jonathan was spending the night with a friend who lives off Hilo Road. The family was sitting at the table eating pizza during the thunder storm when they heard the rumbling sound of a train. They quickly crammed into the bathroom, the house shook, trees and power lines were snapped, and then it was suddenly quiet. This all happened in seconds. Jonathan experienced his first and hopefully his last tornado.

Beyond the health issue and the tornado, there is his series of “accidents.” He used to say, “Daddy, tell them about my accidents,” when we got together with anybody who had not heard his horror stories. He loved to see people's reactions.

Like the time we were playing pitch in the front yard. Somehow he lost a fly ball and caught it with his mouth. He fell to the ground, and I ran up to find a bloody mouth and a front tooth missing. Long story short, I found the tooth after frantically searching in the grass for several minutes. This happened on a Friday night, but Dave and Cheryl Lee met us at his office and put the tooth back in Jonathan's mouth. The process of healing took a while, but now it's good as new. But he tells people his daddy knocked out his tooth, and I guess I did.

One Sunday evening after church we met several couples at a local restaurant to visit and enjoy dessert. My son tagged along, bored and stuck with the adults while his sisters sat with fellow youth group members at another table. He finished his dessert, and as we were visiting, he was playing with his root beer bottle. The next thing I know, he is poking me in the arm saying, “Thaddy, my thung is thuck.”

I said, “C'mon, Jonathan. Quit kidding.” I really didn't believe him at first, but I did notice that a root beer bottle was hanging from his tongue.

He said, “My thung is thuck.” He wasn't kidding. He had rolled his tongue and stuck it way down into the neck of the bottle and couldn't get it out.

Now, I was concerned, especially when I realized he wasn't teasing, but it was quite a sight. I'd never seen anyone with a root beer bottle swinging from his tongue. I began to laugh, the entire table began to laugh, and the next thing I know, he's laughing with that bottle bouncing back and forth at the end of his tongue.

After one attempt to pull the bottle from his tongue proved to be somewhat painful, my wife “held his tongue” and was somehow able to twist it away from the bottle. Another near miss. I was imagining a trip to the emergency room, some sort of saw, and possibly a forked tongue.

That's not the first time Jonathan's been stuck. I was attending the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Indianapolis in 1991. While I was away, my family was back at the hotel. Waiting for the elevator door to open, my then-two-year-old son was leaning his hand on the closed door. The elevator arrived, the door slid open and my son's hand followed the door as it slid into the wall. Suddenly he started screaming hysterically as he realized his hand was stuck in the elevator door.

It was a tense moment as guests realized what was going on and watched in horror as my wife frantically tried to release his hand from between the door and the wall. When the door closed, fortunately, the hand came out. He was sore, hotel management was concerned, but after ice and a couple of days, the hurt began to fade away.

I could continue with his near-drowning, the hoe-in-the-head story, or the encounter with the shark at Litchfield Beach. Never a dull moment, but, oh, the memories we're making and the fun we're having.