Down the Rabbit Hole

Yesterday we attended Honey's Boss's 40th Birthday party.  There was a good bit of kids there and the hosts had borrowed a giant space-walk water slide. Kind of like this:

We spent most of the party socializing, but then Jelly started fussing about going on the water slide. I knew we would never hear the end of it if he didn't get to go on it, so I told Honey to take him outside to play on it while I finished feeding the baby.

When Scooter was done eating, we went outside.  Jelly was sliding down the slide with two little girls.  Honey was sitting on the porch casually watching the kids.  I took Scooter into another part of the front yard, probably 20 feet away from the water slide and played with him. We took turns throwing a beach ball. A couple of minutes later, Honey came over to play, too.

I glanced back to check on Jelly every few minutes.  I noticed the girls were standing at the top of the slide. Because of their collected weight, it sagged just a bit there. I assumed Jelly was laying down at the top.  So I watched and waited for him to get up. After about 30 seconds, I called to the girls. "Is Jelly up there?"

They said no.  Honey and I looked at each other and without a word, he scooped up the baby and we started for the backyard, heading in opposite directions.  I went down the side yard, checked in the playhouse and on the jungle gym, all the while trying to figure out how Jelly got past us.  I was watching pretty carefully and I didn't see him get off the slide.  But he is the most mischievous of my children, so it wasn't entirely out of character for him to cause me anxiety.

He wasn't in the backyard.

I headed back to the front yard. Still not on the slide. I went into the house and looked in all the shut bedrooms asking party-goers, "Have you seen a very wet little boy?" Everyone was shaking their heads at me.  I went into the back patio where a group of adults including the hostess was sitting. I asked her, "Have you seen my son?" She said, "Oh, yes! Your husband has him! He was carrying him down the side of the house."

I started  back to the front yard all the while thinking: If Honey was carrying Jelly, where was Scooter? I got back to the front yard and Honey wasn't there. He came over from the side of the house carrying Scooter. Then I panicked. The hostess saw a man carrying Jelly. A man that wasn't Honey. This was the first time we had met. Maybe she thought someone else was my husband. I ran back through the house to her. I said, "WHO did you see carrying Jelly? Honey doesn't have him."

She said, "Oh, I thought you were talking about the baby. You meant your other son?"

"Yes, I can't find him. Will you help me look?" Every adult got up from the table. I headed back to the front yard and looked toward our car and called out, "JELLY!"

All of a sudden the two girls on top of the slide called to me.

"HE'S IN THE SLIDE!"

The next few seconds were a blur. People rushed into the house shouting, "He's in the slide! He's in the slide!"

I looked at the bottom of the slide and could see a small moving lump at the bottom. I ran over to it. Somehow or another, I got Scooter from Honey because I was holding him. I yelled, "Jelly! How did you get in there?!?!"

He yelled back, "I fell down a hole!"

Sure enough, at the top, there was a hole in a seam, just large enough for a small little boy to slip down.  While I was figuring this out, Honey's Boss had gone in the back of the slide. I had seen the slide deflate slightly and then re-inflate. I raced to the back to see a 2-3 foot tall zipper. People were holding the canvas up so it won't collapse on Jelly and Boss while they were inside while the slide was re-inflating.  I thought the slides were hollow inside, but they are not. They are honeycombed with walls, I suppose for structural integrity. Boss kept yelling. "Where is he?" He was cutting his way through walls to get to Jelly.

Meanwhile, someone else had found the spot where Jelly was and pulled back layers of canvas, I guess to be able to cut through it if Boss couldn't get to Jelly from the inside. I think they were still worried about creating a hole they couldn't shut to keep it inflated. Those things weigh a lot, plus the water. They didn't want to crush Jelly.  I squatted down by Jelly and held his head in my hands while holding Scooter.

"Baby. Mommy's here. Boss is coming for you. When you see him, don't be scared. He is cutting down the walls inside. Don't be scared. I'm right here. Stay calm. You're doing great. You're such a big boy. I'm so proud of you. We'll get you out. Don't worry. Don't be scared. I'm right here."

I was barely holding it together at this point. The only thing making me stay calm was knowing that Jelly couldn't hear how scared I was. How worried I was that he was hurt from the 12 foot fall. How worried I was that Boss would accidentally cut him while he was breaking down the walls.

"I've got him!" I heard Boss yell through the canvas. I rushed to the back of the slide to see them unzip it and Jelly be thrust out into Honey's arms. Boss literally dove out of the opening headfirst into the arms of the crowd while men were trying to hold the collapsing canvas up.

I turned around to Jelly, who looked hot and sweaty, but ok. He didn't cry at all. I hugged him. Someone got him a drink. He was ok.

I knew the best way for kids to quickly get over trauma is to let them talk about it as much as they need to. So we talked about what happened a whole lot.  Jelly fell down the hole, but didn't get hurt because the inside of the slide wasn't hollow. He tried to climb back up the to the hole, but wasn't strong enough. He had yelled and cried, but no one had heard him. (I think this is the part where Honey and I were running around trying to find him.) He heard people telling him to go to the back, but he didn't know where that was or how to get there. He was scared we would leave without him, not find him. Forget him.

He asked to take a picture of the slide so that we wouldn't forget what happened to him. He said, "I don't ever want anyone to fall down that hole again."  We told him over and over that it was going in the trash. No one would play on it ever again. Boss had cut down all the walls to find him. It was broken.

I reassured him it wasn't his fault and he hadn't done anything wrong. I told him I would never ever forget him. That he had done the right thing by staying still in one spot and being calm. I told him that him falling wasn't supposed to happen; no one knew that would happen. I told him everyone was looking for him, that lots of people came to rescue him.  I took him to Target and let him pick out a toy for being so brave (and to assuage my own guilt.)

It was scary and awful. I'm glad he is ok. He might not have been. But he is.