Some children are just bent on making your heart pound – I think they delight in it even.
“Jacob, why don’t you find the fin for your giant fish pillow and I will fix it for you.” I had know idea my willingness to fix his pillow would have such an interesting result.
Jacob promptly disappeared to his bedroom at the other end of the house and I proceeded to clean and organize my office (it’s time to start working on christmas sewing and such and I need it clean to do that, heh). A few minutes later I thought I heard Jacob yelling and crying, so I sent the girls to check and see if he needed help.
“His leg is stuck in the bed!” came the reply as they stampeded through the house to my office. Now, that may sound a bit odd to most people, but I knew exactly what they meant. We have a set of bunkbeds that were made by my uncle. The way the beds are made leaves a gap between the wood crossbar of the end of the bed and the wall. It’s not a big gap, just right for the size for a leg, of, oh say – a three year-old boy, to get stuck. He could freely move the lower part of his leg, but his knee was wedge in tight. I tried to work it free, but I was afraid of hurting him.
There is something else to know about Jacob’s room. We use it for storage. We are living in my parent’s house while they serve missions for church. The top bunk of his bed is loaded with boxes, a cedar chest, and on top of those are a queen size mattress and box springs – snugged right up to the ceiling, and of course everything is wedged in tight so as not to be unstable and fall, etc. Then at the end of the bed (not by the wall where Jacob was stuck) is a spare twin size mattress, a head board, a couple other twinsize thing mattress type things, and another queen size mattress – so from the end of the bed to the wall is packed just as tight as the top bunk up to the ceiling.
After trying to work him loose I stood in a panic staring at the momouth bed and surrounding storage. The only thought that crossed my mind was, There is no possible way I can move that bed, and my husband is on his way to class in Portland.
Not sure what else to do, I called Paul and told him what was going on. He agreed he couldn’t come home, and besides it would be close to an hour before he got home anyway. Jacob had already been stuck for at least 5-10 minutes at this point. “Run and see if our neighbor is home.”
I hopped off the phone and looked at my crying boy. Before I did anything I decided to try to calm him down by saying a prayer. “Let’s pray,” I told him. He nodded his head. I was about to start when the phone rang. I went to answer it, and my dear sweet boy not wanting to wait, said his own prayer of, “Please let me get my leg out.” The phone call was Paul letting me know that he had called a couple members of our church and they were on their way over. Jacob asked for his favorite stuffed dog and blanket to help him feel better, and not as scared.
In the mean time I began hauling out everything I possibly could. When the first person, a 17 year-old down the street arrived I was heaving off the top mattress from the top bunk. Pretty soon we had things cleared out enough that we could jerk on the bunk beds in hope to move it just enough that Jacob could slip his leg out.
We jerked, we yanked, we pulled, and it didn’t seem that the beds had moved even the tiniest bit, but it must have worked because Jacob managed to wiggle free.
When all was said and done, Jacob was stuck for close to 30 minutes. We got him loose just before the second ward member arrived.
The seventeen year-old had ridden a bike down to our house, in short sleeves, he hadn’t even taken the time to put on a jacket. It’s no warmer than 40 something outside and he was pedaling as fast as he could. Not only that, but the chain on his bike is broken and he had to take his mom’s bike. To give you an idea of what that would have been like: Elizabeth is almost as tall as his mom – she is tiny. He takes after his dad who is very tall, so here was this tall long legged boy riding a bike that was hardly bigger than my eldest daughter’s as fast as he could just to come help us out. What a great kid!
Anyway, we are grateful for answered prayers and wonderful friends who drop everything to come running when we need them. Oh, and Jacob is fine. I think his knee is a bit bruised, but he was running around the house like a madman moments after we loosed him, so I don’t think there was any damage done. Though, I must say I had to give a little chuckle when I poked my head in before going to bed and he was curled up asleep in a little ball as far away from that end of the bed possible.
And, we never did find the fish fin – I started to stick my arm down there trying to feel for it, but then I decided I would look pretty foolish if I got stuck and decided not to push it. heh.
Fun and Flawed 