Public Safety Announcement

In addition to warning you stay out C's way when he is in a fiberglass leg cast (that thing can deliver a hefty bruise if aimed carefully enough), I came across a post the other week that I wish I'd read while I was in teachers' college.  Although I've never needed to rescue someone in my care while swimming, I was looking for the wrong signals.  And I personally know at least one family that tragically lost a member to drowning.

The blogpost linked to a site with an article explaining what drowning really looks like and a further link to a video of what has been termed the 'instinctive drowning response'.  We've been conditioned by television and the movies to look for someone splashing wildly or calling for help, and I can remember being taught to raise one arm if I needed assistance in the water.  But when people really do need help, they're not able to behave this way, and the window of opportunity between distress and needing resuscitation is short - possibly less than 30 seconds.  I strongly urge you to go check out this site before you next head out to spend some time near water.

On a lighter note, do you know how hard it is to keep a crawler away from water in the home?  Even emptying a dishwasher is a hazard for C's cast, since he wants to climb in, and in the bath, and in the toilet, and play with drips from his sippy cup... He is desperately waiting until he can have more than a spongebath again!  Me too.  I'm tired of all the chasing.

Here's one of his favourite dry spots.  It gets him close to J's seat at the table (where all the fun stuff happens) and is a bit of a mission for Mum to reach in around the table legs!