*This week I’m participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop by answering the prompt: 2.) Explain a time there was an emergency. What “mode” did you go into? Freaking out, calm and collected, etc.

As a mom, of course there are several instances over the years when my kids have been in physical danger because, well, kids tend to live on the edge without regard to bodily harm.  I’m a pretty calm person anyway and as a parent I am the calm one while my husband is the “you’re going to put your eye out with that thing” parent.  He’s the one freaking out when they climb to the top of the jungle gym at the playground while I carefully spot from below without comment.    While I let my kids experience more of the (unsafe) world than my husband is apt to do without my unflappable assurance that “they’ll be fine”, he is more cautious about their health in general and is quick to assess when the kids are getting sick.   Both kinds of parenting have their advantage and the kids are lucky to have us to balance each other out.

But still, you never know how you will react in a dangerous situation until one happens (I consider a dangerous situation an emergency).   I experienced two separate situations with my son involving a dangerous dog and both times I was able to act quickly and calmly.

In the first situation, my son was almost attacked by a loose Pit Bull in front of our house in New Jersey.  I know that Pit Bulls as a breed are not a danger, so don’t send me comments saying that I am anti-Pit Bull, but this particular dog happened to be a Pit Bull with a neighborhood reputation for being pretty vicious.   I was standing on my porch talking to a neighbor and my son was on the sidewalk next to the neighbor; he was about 5 years old.  Out of nowhere this dog comes charging across the street–headed straight for my son.   Now the details get a bit fuzzy for me after that, but as my neighbor tells it, I reached over the porch railing, grabbed my son with one hand–”like the hand of God” said my neighbor– and pulled him in the house while shutting the door with the other hand.  This all happened in a matter of seconds in one soundless swoop.   With my son safe inside I grabbed the phone and called the police, because my neighbor was still outside fighting off the dog.   Thankfully he was able to use his briefcase as a shield because the dog was relentlessly jumping and biting; the briefcase was covered with bite marks.    The thought of what that dog could have done to my son, who was the perfect height to have been bitten in the face or easily knocked to the ground, is quite scary.   I guess the split second thought of it was enough for me to spring into action and use resources that I didn’t even know I had.

The other dog incident happened here in Atlanta, about a year or so ago.   My son (much older now, but still afraid of dogs because of the pit bull) and I were walking past a big grassy field where we saw a man playing ball with his off-leash dog, a Boxer.   The dog was running all over the field and not necessarily chasing the ball; just running crazy.   When the dog saw us, he ran towards us at top speed.  At first I wasn’t that concerned because I thought maybe he wanted to play, but as he got closer I could see in his face that wasn’t the case.  Meanwhile the man stayed where he was and called to the dog, who wasn’t listening, but he didn’t move to come get the dog, so we were on our own.   Unfortunately, the path that we were on was long and wide open; there was nowhere for us to go.   As the dog circled us snapping and growling my son was hopping around, but I know that is NOT what you are supposed to do in that situation, so I wrapped my ams around him to make him be still and said to myself  ”there is no way out; one or both of us is going to get bitten.”   I remember thinking this very calmly and steeling myself for the pain sure to come.   Just then the dog spotted another walker on the other side of the field and took off barking and growling at them.  The owner was still in the middle of the field calling to the unresponsive dog.    We took that opportunity to get out of there as fast as we could, still pretty shaken up.