Mum pleads for parents to pay more attention: 'It happened so fast'
Writer Adrian Wood encountered one of the scariest incidents in her lifetime quite recently.
One which prompted the mum-of-four to be more vigilant when out and about, asking all other parents to do the same.
While she factors there is potential for her to be judged, as she too would have done so at some point, the mum feels her story is too important not to share.
Adrian's four-year-old son, Amos, almost fell into a zoo enclosure.
The first thought that struck the mother was the time this exact episode occurred to another mum, with Adrian always wondering how it happened: "I tried not to blame his mama."
"But the voice in my head nudged me to wonder what she had been doing. Why hadn't she been watching? I get it. A million times over, I get it."
"Today, it was my turn. My son didn't fall into the concrete valley below, but he was not two seconds away from doing so."
Asking herself the questions of where she was, what she was doing and how she didn't see this about to happen, Adrian was torn, afraid, and grateful that she got lucky.
"I was right there. Just a few feet away with my older son, talking species, while Amos ran happily up and down the wooden platform."
"We had been standing at the fence moments earlier and I turned to find that he had slipped through the fence rails, eager to reach his favourite creatures, I guess."
"Though they appeared to be too narrow to wedge a preschool size body through, it took Amos only a few seconds to scoot his small self between or beneath the safety bars. I'm still not sure. It happened so fast. Absolute panic. "
The moment Adrian pulled her son back into her arms by the hood of his jumper, she realised she was on the other side of the fence: "I, too, have been the mum judger, silently critiquing parents who falter because of, what seemed to me, their clear ineptness."
"Four kids and autism means I should have realised life isn't about being the perfect mum. We believe in ourselves a bit too much and then we are reminded that life doesn't abide by fences."
"We try super hard and sometimes terrible things happen, and when you get a save like I did? You hug your little person tight and tell your story in hopes that the next mama will pay closer attention."
Sometimes in the flow of normality we relax and forget to look that little bit closer – it's no one's fault, it happens, let's just be a little more aware.