Child Safety 101. With Jack Bauer.

Usually on Fridays, I clean. I do battle with my whole apartment--all the toys that have somehow escaped daily clean-ups, the folded laundry that never made it to the drawers, the random bags by the door that failed to get unpacked after church--we go head to head and I win every week. And then the whole place gets vacuumed and maybe dusted if I am feelin' it. It's a weekly victory I can count on. I do this so my family and I can relax in a clean apartment over the weekend. I feel cozy just thinking about it. But not this past Friday.

This past Friday, I completed my first assignment for my self-made Child Safety class: I got trained in CPR/First Aid/AED.

So I get to the class early on Friday morning. As I look nervously around the huge U-shaped table where all 13 of us train-ee's are sitting, I am definitely the only stay at home mom in this group. I'm carrying a packed brown-bag lunch and a baggie of Cheerio's for my mid-morning snack which I start munching immediately out of nervousness. I'm wearing my best (ok, borrowed) maternity blue jeans. I pull out my fat 3 ringed binder, filled with the official training manual that I had my husband print off and hole punch for me a few days ago. Oh, and I've already read the whole thing.

As we go around the room to introduce ourselves, my suspicions are confirmed. Everyone is here because they have to be for their job or to be a cub scout leader, which apparently is a big deal these days because there were at least 3 of these. I was last to go, and I was trying to think of a way to fancy-up the words "home-maker" and "stay-at-home mom" but nothing came. "Hi, I'm Catherine. I'm a stay at home mom..."

It was a very informative day! Let me share with you some highlights.

Highlight # 1: When you do CPR successfully, you will probably break the victim's ribs. 

What?! Yes. You will hear popping, grinding, and crunching as you break the ribs, doing chest compressions 2 inches or more deep into the chest. What you are actually doing is pressing down so hard on the heart that you squoosh all the blood out, then as you release, the heart fills back up. Squoosh the blood out again, let it fill back up...you are manually doing the work of the heart while it is stopped. You are manually pumping blood through the body while you wait for an ambulance to arrive.

HO-LY COW. Did everyone know this but me? I'm sure I looked like I was watching a horror movie as kind Mr. Kidding (no, I'm not kidding, that's his name) demonstrated how this is done. I always thought you were just kind of bumping the heart to get it going again. You know, like giving it a nudge. Hey, start back up in there! I know that sounds stupid but good grief. This CPR stuff is gruesome work!

On a different note, as I'm watching the videos and demonstrations of all kinds of life-saving, I am completely distracted with thoughts of Jack Bauer from the TV show "24." You know who I'm talking about. The guy who can take out a whole room full of hostiles single-handedly while eating a subway sandwich and performing CPR on an almost dead guy. My husband and I are completely addicted to this show. We watch it every night. So as our instructor gets on the floor to demonstrate rescue breaths and chest compressions, I am imagining Jack bursting in through a ceiling tile, throwing poor Mr. Kidding aside, and yelling, "That's not good enough agent Kidding!" And with two bone-crushing compressions, he brings the dummy back to life and hands him a gun. They run out of the room to stop the bomb or the nuke or whatever. I've got to stop watching so much TV.

Highlight# 2: You must ask for permission before helping the choking victim.

Let me lay this out for you. Let's just say I am choking in the food court at the mall, probably on a Chick-Fil-A chicken nugget. You see me from afar, turning blue, holding my throat. You are trained in CPR/First Aid so you run over to help. You must follow these steps:

Step1: Introduce yourself to me.
Step 2: Inform me that you are certified in CPR/First Aid
Step 3: (Here is the kicker) Ask permission to help me.
Step 4: If I nod my head yes (I cannot verbalize this, you see, because I am still CHOKING), you may then begin to help.

I would just like to say to all of you certified people out there, if you ever find me choking or passing out from lack of air, consider yourself excused of steps 1 through 3 and just start SAVING MY LIFE, ok? Thank you. Jack Bauer wouldn't ask permission. I'm just saying.

Highlight #3: Dallas public transportation is a nightmare.

Class is over a half hour late. This normally wouldn't be a big deal but today, my husband and I are sharing a vehicle and I'm taking the bus home. Alone. For the first time. It occurs to me at this moment that every time Doug and I have used public transportation, he does the thinking and I just, well, do the sitting. We just recently got back from a road trip and while we were gone we stopped for a few days in New York City. You don't drive anywhere in that city, you take the subway. When it was time to get back on the subway, Doug would bring me and my daughter into the subway station, park us somewhere safe, then go off to the map to figure out the route.
Today I'm thinking maybe it would have done me some good to at least figure out how a bus system works. Because now I've missed my bus and there is not another one coming on that same route for an hour.

I'm actually a little shaky as I stand on the corner where the bus stop is. I'm terribly thirsty, I could use a restroom, and have I mentioned I'm 4 and a half months pregnant? I see a sign for the train system across the road and I know there's a train that goes near our apartment. Now if I can just get to that station and figure out the map...GULP.

By the time I walk 1/4 mile to that station, I'm on the phone with Doug. He is on his computer trying to figure out where I am. I'm at the wrong train station. This train will take me to Fort Worth. I start to cry. "I am walking home!" I say. Somehow this has turned into his fault. Well, the old boy calms me down and directs me a few blocks away to the correct train station. I cry most of the walk there, mostly because I feel like such an idiot. Fortunately this train is pretty fool-proof and it brings me within several blocks of home. I get off, start walking and keep going until I fall on my couch.

What a day!