Near misses, please tell me yours and steady my nerves...

[seriouscase]

I had a near miss today with DS2. He is fine, I am a wreck. Please tell me I am not alone. I feel crap. So scary how things can go wrong in a few seconds.

We have had so many but i think the worst was when we were at a friends house with ds1 who was 3 and ds2 who was 17m me and friend were chatting downstairs whilst the kids were playing upstairs friends dd came down with wet socks and said its raining, ran upstairs and saw out of window my ds2 on very wet balconny which has a criss cross fence round it with holes that he could have easily fallen through. I have never ran so fast. It appears my ds1 had unlocked the door to play in the rain. I still feel so guilty and sick when i think about it we have never told anyone about it.

When DD was 10 months old, we lived in a flat where the living room led onto the kitchen. I had a stairgate on the kitchen door, and DD was never allowed in there so nothing in the kitchen was child-proof. One day, my landlord came round to check something in the kitchen. I led him through to the kitchen, he had a quick look and then I led him back through the living room (where DD was playing) to the front door, WITHOUT locking the gate on my way through. Walked back in through the living room to see DD walking towards me holding the bottom half of the hand-held blender (the part with the blade!) I grabbed it off her and cried at the thought of what might have happened. DD was very much in the everything-in-the-mouth phase so thank God she hadn't yet put it in her mouth! I soon moved all sharp objects and went out and bought cupboard/drawer locks.

seriouscase - I suspect you're feeling considerably better after reading this lot...

when dd1 was about 2, i turned round suddenly- dont ask what made me look at her at that second- and she was just about to poke one of those little screwdrivers into the plug socket...