halloween candy warning!

Just so you know:

Pirate’s Gold Foil Wrapped Chocolates

I have always trusted Snopes. I figured better safe than sorry. Maybe someone from Canada reads my blog?

boy dies of secondary drowning

I had no idea such a thing even existed. So glad a friend sent this to me.

Water safety

You absolutely HAVE to see this. Supposedly you can find ISR classes near you, but I haven’t the slightest idea how. If someone figures it out, let me know!

Someone please explain!

Ok- I seriously need someone to explain the logistics of the predicament I find myself in this hour.

Do you know what it’s like to live in the only city in the world where your dog catcher seems to be- yes- afraid of dogs?

We have a stray dog who just love to show her teeth to us and bark and growl and all that good stuff. The dog catcher has been here for weeks trying to allure the dog with a cage…and a steak. The dog is smart, however, and is not buying it.

A week has passed. My kids were nearly eaten as we walked to church this past Sunday (ok maybe I am exaggerating). Kids at bus stops have been stalked by “Killer” (as I affectionately call her). Daisy is limping as she came upon across a “conflict” with said canine a few nights ago.

I am fed up with it. I didn’t want to have to do it, but I did. I made a personal call to Animal Control. It went a little something like this:

Me: Hello. I live at 911 Dog-Wants-To-Eat-Me Street (in case you didn’t know, street names have been changed to protect myself…and add a little humor to the situation). We have a stray dog here and I am starting to feel as though my children’s safety is at risk.

ACG (Animal Control Guy): Ma’am, I am aware of the dog you are talking about and we are doing our best to retrieve the animal.

Me: I see the cage outside (and a steak), but I haven’t seen anyone from Animal Control here in over a week. I cannot walk my dog. I cannot take my kids on a walk. We have one car and most of the time we have to walk to church. This really is beginning to affect our quality of life here (ok, I don’t know why I said that, but I did. I was mad).

ACG: I understand, ma’am, but I have spoken to my boss and he says we can’t do anything else about it.

Me: So, let me see if I understand. We can tranquilize humans who are being a menace to our neighborhoods, but not dogs? (I wanted to ask him if he was afraid of PETA, but I bit my tongue.) And let me see if this is also correct: if you catch a dog and no one claims it, you will euthanize it, but you won’t temporarily impair an animal that is a threat to several people and other dogs in my neighborhood?

ACG: No, ma’am, we don’t tranquilize animals. I completely understand why you are upset. I would be upset as well were it my neighborhood. But there is simply nothing more that I can do.

Me *turning into a rather emotional female who knows that life without “Killer” simply isn’t going to happen*: Thank you. I’m sorry if I seem rude. I don’t mean to be.

I almost told him that if he could provide me with the ammo, I could take care of the problem myself, but again, I didn’t.

Now I’m going to fold laundry…and listen to “Killer” bark at every breathing thing that passes by.

P.S. Do you like how I listed this under Safety?

Becky asked:

Oh my goodness, how did he get stuck in it? Were you going up or down? I need to know so I can make sure it doesn’t happen to Isaac or Grace. I make the kids keep hold my hand with one hand then hold on the rail with one hand then we all get off together. I heard about shoe laces before, so tie our shoes before we get on them as well.

We were neither going up nor down. We were waiting for our rental car on the ground transportation level. Noah and Sammy were getting very restless as they were- in one word- exhausted. I was holding Simon and pacing when I noticed that Noah was getting a little too close to the handrail return that ran underneath the escalator and ran back up to the top. The representative for the Opryland Hotel had seen his too and warned him just the same.

The rest of what I remember is a blur. At the exact moment I noticed that Noah had stuck his hand under the handrail return, it was too late. He began to scream “it hurts!” I dropped Simon and jumped on top of Noah . With my left hand, I held onto his arm. I didn’t know if I should pull. I thought if I would pull his hand off. I thought if I didn’t pull more of his arm would get pulled off. So I pulled. In those few seconds I rationalized that it would be better to lose his hand than his whole arm. With my right hand, I aimlessly hit the escalator hoping to hit an emergency stop. The next thing I knew police officers had heard my mama bear screams for help and the escalator stopped. Noah’s hand came out easily. I thought for sure, at best, his hand would be mangled and bloody. It wasn’t. It was, however, skinned and burnt.

I remember thinking (as the cops hovered over my screaming son) “where did these cops come from?” David jokes now that they rappeled (spelling?) off the ceiling. I have no idea, but they were fast!

Noah soon became a junior member of the Nashville Police Department, but he wasn’t happy about it. They cleaned up his hand and sent us for an xray at the ER the following day.

I can’t believe how lucky Noah was. I have heard horror stories about escalators and I am so thankful that he was okay. I thought for sure we would be turned in to social services, but luckily they acknowledged that this could have happened to anyone.

Let this serve as a warning to each of you about the REAL danger of escalators. I knew it but until it happened to him I didn’t KNOW it! Just keep a constant eye on very curious children. I consider Noah to be a very sensible child (I thought this would happen to Sammy before Noah) and his curiousity still got the best of him.