Counting my blessings...

The last few days have been hot and miserable here. Especially since there is no a/c in the house! Most evenings, Porter has taken a shower (I love the stand up stall showers... he takes a shower all by himself LOL! Well, with some help washing his hair and body, of course) and then have watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in my mom's room.

Today we had a near-catastrophe here at the lake. My mom had Porter outside with her and my grandpa while they were doing some work in the yard. I was inside with Hudson and heard my mom calling for Porter. I heard her call a few times, and then I heard her running through the house looking for him. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I started to think... we're on the lake.... she can't find Porter. Why can't she find Porter? I jumped up and followed her through the house (which is very large and has two garages... one on each "end") and asked if she'd checked by the lake. She said no... that he had been right by her just a moment before... he couldn't be down at the lake.

See, the house is on 2 lots. The lake lot is empty and as you walk towards the lake the yard slopes and you can't really see the edge of the lake from the house. You can see the water, just not the hill and stairway down to the lake. (Here's a pic for an idea... that house is the neighbors house which sits right on the lake. You can see the lake to the left of the tree. If you were standing by the tree the ground goes down a hill all the way to the water edge)

Well, my mom told me to go look around by the other garage and she ran down to the lake. I heard her yell that she found him. He had made his way down to the lake, somehow climbed the 1-2 ft drop off the bulkhead onto the dock which hasn't even been installed... its literally just laying in 3 parts piled in the lake. He was sitting on the edge of the dock with his feet in the water. Here's a picture from a few days before when we'd been playing in the lake... you can see the drop from the ground, and where the docks are just piled in the water, not even attached to the bulkhead.


I am so thankful that we got down there in time, and that he miraculously got onto the dock safely and didn't fall into the water climbing down onto it. I don't even want to think of how awful this could have ended up and I'm so thankful that he's ok. We can't figure out how the hell he got down there so fast, as my mom had literally just turned away for a moment.

This just reminds me exactly why I vetoed any houses for sale on lakes or with pools. It freaks me out that Porter can get outside on his own and despite our numerous scoldings to not go outside without an adult, he still thinks he's free to go in and out whenever. I have to keep a close eye on him and after this incident I'm super paranoid to even let him outside without someone having 100% attention on him and we're trying to drill into his head he can NOT go to the lake unless he's holding someone's hand, and that he can NOT go outside by himself and especially without telling someone. Stressful!

So, of course... here are a few pictures from that day, hanging out in my mom's room watching Rudolph...