Heart-Stopper

Yesterday we had an incident. One of those where your heart stops for a a few seconds (or minutes it seemed in my case) and you find yourself thanking God over and over again for His protection as if He doesn't hear you the first time. And the guilt...oh the mom guilt. So before I share our little incident, let me start by prefacing that I do believe I won "world's worst mom" award yesterday. Thankfully God grants grace and new days. :)

It started yesterday afternoon...both kids went down for naps for about 2-3 hours (I MAY have also indulged!), and after we woke up, I realized I had nothing prepared for dinner when Jason got home. This planning dinner thing is not a forte of mine and I tend to remember it's my responsibility mid-day. More on that on a later day. :)

So I loaded up the kids and and we headed to the grocery store (like we do almost every other day!) When we got there, I stuck with my "shopping routine" of getting Lincoln out first and putting him in the big part of the shopping cart. Then we get Noah and sit his carrier on the top part. I've tried the reverse, but when Noah is down alone in the big part, he cries and screams the whole time because he can't see me.

And then we venture in...we had only been in the store maybe 30 seconds when Lincoln caught the eye of the bakery worker and started laughing and smiling at her - to which she was reciprocating. The exchange was adorable but was promptly disrupted when I accidentally rammed the shopping cart straight into a large, short crate holding Dr. Pepper bottles (that was completely hidden out of my sight!). Maybe if Noah's seat wasn't on top I would have seen it? Not sure.
But the images of those next few moments will be forever etched in my memory!
When i hit the crate, I bumped it so hard that it propelled (yes, PROPELLED) Lincoln out of the shopping cart, frontwards, to where he FLIPPED out - head first.
I saw all of this in what seemed slower than slow motion and felt my eyes and heart beginning to pop out of their places - seriously it looked HORRIFIC. Praise the Lord - he didn't hurt himself at all. I'm not really sure how to be honest...broken bones? Busted head? Even a little blood? Obviously the much much much worse scenarios I don't even want to mention...? But nothing.
He landed into the Dr. Peppers which braced his fall from a direct hit on the floor, and then just rolled into the floor.
Needless to say - he was screaming which triggered Noah to join in chorus and I was doing everything in my power to at least be the one to hold it together! I got Lincoln calm within a minute (cookies help!) but then found myself roaming aimlessly around the store realizing, concentration and dinner planning was just NOT happening.
So we left.
I called the Dr. to let them know what happened.
I cried. A little at first, then balled after I called my husband!

But this tough guy was not affected apparently. He was able to show me all his "tricks" do all of his sign language, show me where all of his body parts are (yes - we went through the WHOLE list!), and then danced t his favorite song with utmost energy as if to show me he was fine. :)
That's when I captured this picture:
On a funny note, though, Jason got home about 3 hours later (Lincoln had been in a great mood playing and dancing with no signs of his accident), and the first thing Lincoln did when Jason walked in the door was immediately put on a frown face and rub his head as if to tell Jason "Mommy ejected me from the grocery cart today!"