Mommy Adrenaline

Mommy adrenaline. Have you ever experienced it? It's like a surge of power or super speed that you get in critical situations. If you google "mommy adrenaline", one of the first things that comes up is a story about a mom that lifted a car off her child. Whaaat? Told you, super strength. 

This is what moms look like during those moments.

Well I've had two experiences with "mommy adrenaline" recently.

Experience Number One:

A little over a week ago Hailey started choking on a piece of pizza. It wasn't any different than pizza she's had before, but for some reason she choked. I noticed a weird noise coming from her, so I looked over and saw her struggling to even breathe! BOOM! Mommy adrenaline activated. Within seconds I pulled the high chair tray off, put her in position, and did the baby Heimlich. By the time Travis noticed what was happening (he was still dishing up his plate), I already had it taken care of. My response time was accelerated and I reacted with super speed.

Such a scary situation. I'm grateful I took the CPR class a year ago, so my brain immediately knew what to do. 

Okay, cool story. Now let's talk about the opposite end of the stick. A moment where the mommy adrenaline didn't kick in.

Experience Number Two:

Hailey and I were playing at the park a couple weeks back with some kids Travis and I were babysitting. The playground was bigger than other ones we've been to. 

 But Hailey has been doing really good at playgrounds. Usually Travis or I go up with her and send her down a slide to the other parent. In this instance Travis was busy with some other kids. So I figured Hailey could handle going up the stairs and turn the corner to go down the slide. And I would be right there guiding her through the rails.

So up Hailey went.

I stuck my hands through the bars to spot her as she went up. She was going up really well and I thought to myself, "I knew she could handle this". Then she got to the top. And out of my reach. 

Hailey looked down at me, as if realizing she was free from my grasp, and then took off to the opposite side of the playground. I immediately yelped, realizing she was out of my control. There were open areas where she could fall off so I tried getting her attention back to the slide by calling out frantically. Nope. I knew that if I went up the stairs she would think I was chasing her and run from me. Danger. So I ran over to the other side of the playground to block her from falling off and to see if I could grab her.

Right when Hailey saw me she belly laughed thinking we were playing a game. She was out of my reach, as the playground ledge came up to my neck. She took off again across the playground toward the other open spot in the fence.

My immediate reaction was to jump up onto the playground and go after her. I felt like that was the quickest way to get to her. THIS IS IT. This is the moment my mommy adrenaline kicks in and I jump higher than I ever have before. So I tried to jump onto the playground. I jumped without success, only getting my chest onto the playground. There was nothing for me to grab onto so I fell back off. I thought for sure my mommy adrenaline would kick in. This is one of those moments where my child is in danger and I'm supposed to develop super powers. With that in mind, I jumped again.

Thud. I landed on my chest again. My Kobe Bryant hops I was hoping for never came. I felt all the other parents' eyes on me as I humbly admitted defeat. I quickly ran over and went up the stairs to fetch my wandering child. Luckily she didn't run from me that time. I think she was curious as to why I was calling her name so urgently. Or maybe she felt bad because I embarrassed myself. For whatever reason, she stopped running and I was able to grab her. I looked around and noticed my earlier suspicion was true. Every single parent at the park had their eyes on me. I wanted to wave and say, "Don't worry, first time mom here. We're still working out the kinks". But instead, I didn't say anything and we went down the slide. Hailey squealed with happiness and joy, and I tried to catch my breath and slow my rapidly beating heart. 

So there you have it. Sometimes the mommy adrenaline kicks in, and sometimes you look like a fool expecting it to. The end.