My Son Celebrates Child Safety Awareness Week

Apparently, there is a Child Safety Awareness Week in June in the UK. Despite its being August and despite the fact that we’re in New England rather than England, my son has been raising my awareness about the hazards that lurk all around us during our move this week. But then, he doesn’t turn two until next week, so perhaps I should cut him some slack for getting a couple of the details wrong.

Last week, he geared up for the main celebration by spraying bug spray into his mouth and prompting a call to Poison Control. I’m very happy we buy the hippie citronella bug spray because the Poison Control guy said the little guy should be fine as long as he didn’t inhale it. And as he wasn’t coughing and seemed fine a few minutes later, it appears he did not, in fact, inhale any (or at least not enough to cause trouble).

This week, he’s been going all-out with his awareness efforts. He fell off his tricycle multiple times, he sprayed window cleaner in his eyes, he did something to set off the carbon monoxide detector (he said his mouth hurt afterward, so maybe he licked it?), and he fell down the second half of our stairs and hit his head on the (well-padded) rug at the bottom. (One of the nice things about living in a split-level home is that there aren’t so many stairs to fall down at once.)

Wednesday his focus seemed to be on choking hazards. Every time I looked at him, he had something else in his mouth. “Sorry” game pieces, coins, tiddlywinks (I didn’t even know we had tiddlywinks), keys, puzzle pieces, Legos. He would look at me with a little close-mouthed grin on his face. I would hold out my hand, and he would just spit whatever was in his mouth in my hand, then laugh and run off to find something else to try to choke on. I’ve begun following my daughter around and picking up the tiny toys she’s so fond of playing with, which in itself is a full-time job.

After alerting us to all of the choking hazards around, my son demonstrated the dangers of the concrete stairs in the front of our home (scraping his nose in the process) and then tried to stick his finger in the light socket.

Throughout the rest of the week, he’s fallen off chairs, been bitten by the neighbor’s cat, smashed his fingers in doors, hit his head on the handle of the shopping cart, and stood up in the seat of the same shopping cart, exposing the shortcomings of the child safety buckle.

And these are all things that he’s done within five to ten feet of an adult at all times. I clearly need to up my vigilance.

I am very much looking forward to the end of Child Safety Awareness Week, although I’m a little concerned about what next week’s focus might be. And I’m very glad we don’t have a pool.