Oh Shoot, Schnook!

The same night as I posted "Still Trusting" (Friday, February 18), Ryan Josiah gave us quite the scare! I'm still praising God for keeping His Word and being faithful to our family!

 

Our house is old. We call it "well-loved" but it was built in the 1950s (and before any of you who were born in the 50s cringe, I'm not calling people old but structures!). We've done a lot of work to our home, and it still needs some more - I think houses always need something more. Anyway, one thing that our charming older split level house has is a laundry shoot. The top of the shoot is inside the upstairs hall linen closet and the bottom goes to our laundry room. When we first saw it as we toured the house before purchasing, we thought we would rip it out. It's not the most attractive-looking thing. But, over time we've found that it IS handy! We use it all the time (and now I think anyone who would get rid of theirs is insane!). The boys put their clothes down the shoot and everything is ready for me in the laundry room to sort and wash, etc. We also do the same.

The boys enjoy putting their things down the shoot, and Ryan in particular has had a fascination with dropping things down when we've left the linen closet door open. He'll grab the boys' shoes from where they belong in their room and throw them down, he's thrown a ball down, and one night while I was in class, he threw all our CLEAN towels down from the linen closet itself on Daddy's watch. Ugh! Typically we catch him in the act and realize that we need to close the door. Most of the time it's been silliness.

But on Friday night, Ryan decided he wanted to lunge down the shoot this time to get the toy he just threw down. Shawn was right next to him, thank God! Shawn yelled for me to come help as he was hanging onto Ryan's legs. Schnook was SCREAMING! And I was terrified. What would have happened if he would have fallen the whole way down? Would he have snapped his neck? Would he have suffocated on the laundry below? Could we have gotten him out, even, because of the shape of the shoot at the bottom and how it turns up? I shuttered at the thought. Our neighborhood just went through a terrible tragedy. I don't think anyone could have handled news like that. I personally couldn't have even begun to imagine what might have been if something happened to my sweet baby...

But, Shawn was there. Ryan was safe. Within seconds our little man forgot about it. And I've been almost militant in making sure we keep the linen closet door closed until Ryan grows a little bigger. Neither of my other boys ever even attempted going down. Only a Schnook! But, it scared me enough that I didn't sleep much at all that night.

Thank You, God, for keeping our kids safe! We don't deserve Your mercy and grace, but we are humbly blessed by them. Please protect our children and keep them under Your wings. In Jesus' Name, AMEN!