Have you ever been stuck? Really stuck, as in “I have no idea how I got myself in this situation, and I have no idea how I’m going to get out” stuck. When Adam was a toddler, he stuck his head through the spokes of his wagon wheel bed frame. I heard this voice calling from upstairs and it had a frantic vibrato to it. “Mooooooom, Mooooooom!”
I had to laugh when I first found him, for the little fellow was truly stuck. His body was too big to move forward through the spokes, and his head appeared too large to go backwards. He was just there caterwauling for me, and I was supposed to have a solution.
I had every confidence that I could get him out, until I tried. Try as I might, there was no exorcising him from the hold of the spokes on his cowboy bed. I gently tried pushing his head backwards, to no avail. I turned his head. I tried pushing his head. I attempted to pull the spokes apart with not one single ounce of luck. My toddler was stuck.
It was then that he panicked, for when you are three and Mom can’t fix it, the end of the world is at hand. He began to cry the cry of an animal in a trap. Now, most mothers can tell you that they are able to differentiate the different cries of their children. There are many of them from the “I’m so grouchy and need a nap” cry to the “the world has ended and I am bleeding “cry. Adam’s cry at this point was high on the “world is ending” spectrum.
So I did what any real mother would do. I went to the shed and I got a hacksaw. I’d have let my husband do it, but he was on the road selling film for Kodak. Back up the stairs I marched with a saw in my hand to saw those spokes from around my baby’s neck.
It never occurred to me that the sight of me with a saw in hand would push him over the edge. I hadn’t bothered to explain to him my plan, I was panicked myself; so it should come as no surprise to you when I tell you that my baby thought I was going to saw his head off. He cried, snot was running down the bedframe, and in this wee, trembling voice he begged me not to kill him.
My heart sunk as I realized what he thought.
“No, baby, Momma isn’t going to cut your sweet, little head off. I’m just going to saw the wood away from where it has you trapped.”
At this point I thought about calling the fire department, the police, the neighbors, and my folks in Tennessee, but I didn’t. I started at the top and the first rub of the saw blade against the frame caused Adam to scream. I stopped.
Plan B was to grease his head with Vaseline. I figured we’d be a week or so getting it out of his blonde curls, but I had to get him out. So I slathered his head in Vaseline, and it still would not come out. By this time, I had awakened the other two children and they were standing beside him, petting him like a little dog, and reassuring him that if he died they’d bury him with his favorite stuffed toy, E.T.
Sarah was barely beginning to talk at the time and she just repeated over and over, “Oh, Amam, you in trouble now. Oh, Amam, you in trouble now.” Andy was laughing and rolling around on his twin bed, and probably patting himself on the back that the possessed he good sense to keep his head out of the spokes o his matching bed.
Then it dawned on me that if his head went in, it had to be at an angle to slide through the spokes. I pushed his head back. No luck. I turned his chin. No luck. Then, I tucked his chin toward his chest, release was facilitated by the Vaseline, and my child was free. Scarred for life, but free.
So, this week as I was feeling particularly stuck in a situation beyond my control, I remembered. You can saw your way out, but that is scary. You can grease your way out, but it takes weeks to get that out of your hair; or you can remember how you got there and reverse the situation. All the while vowing that never, ever again will I be stupid enough to get myself stuck the same way again.
Be it blood, grease, or just good old common sense; you can be free to enjoy the rest of your life! Until next week!
