2 missing childrenChild #1--Jeran. Every Wednesday morning I leave for choir at 7:00 a.m. with Megan and Joie. I even occasionally pat myself on the back for getting us out the door by 7:00 a.m., with Nate and Jeran leaving at 7:30 and 7:50 respectively to walk to school.
This past Wednesday I left at 7:00 a.m. in a snow storm. As I'm driving to the school with Megan and Joie, I'm thinking, "I'm a really, really bad mom to have my boys walking to school in this snowstorm," so once I was at the school I got someone to cover for me and called the boys to tell them I was coming to pick them up.
Clue #1 that something is wrong: No one answers the home phone.
To myself I'm thinking, "Maybe Nate left early because it's snowing...Maybe the phone is off...Maybe...Maybe..."
And sure enough as I'm driving who do I see walking down 11400 South, but Nate. I picked him up and he was happy to have the ride, but looking a little like he'd just been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do. I ignored it, and said we'd go pick up Jeran at the house before I dropped him off.
Clue #2 that something is wrong: Nate says, "Uhhhh.....Jeran's not home."
By now, things are clicking, and without even asking I knew Jeran had walked to school early to play on the playground, thinking I wouldn't know because I had already left. Come to find out he'd been meeting a friend there to play before school...a whole hour before school! For the past four weeks!
And where was I? Tucked safely inside the school with a bunch of elementary school children singing the Chipmunks Christmas song!
The whole time I'm driving Nate to school I'm thinking of all the possible ways to ground Jeran for the rest of his life...take away electronics...take away friends...take away Christmas! (Grrrr....can you feel the blood boiling?) When I had dropped off Nate and returned to the elementary school, I walked first to Jeran's class, sure that by that time he'd be frozen and wanting to come inside.
But off course his teacher hadn't seen him either.
When I walked outside (still blizzard conditions), there was Jeran playing with his friend on the new playground equipment at the school. No one else was out there, just the two of them. All the other children where home safe in their nice warm houses getting ready to be dropped off by their parents. As it turned out, my child had been scaling the back fence of the school every Wednesday morning for the past 4 weeks to play with his friend (who arrives early with his grandma who is a lunch worker).
You should have seen the look on his face when I yelled, "Jeran!" (I actually couldn't see the look on his face until he got much closer because of all the snow.) He followed me inside the school, and by this time neither of us said much of anything. He knew he'd been caught. I knew we'd talk later. 'Nuff said.
Child #2--Joie. For starters I'd like to say to all the Joie fans out there, I really, really do take good care of her. We just lost her for an entire hour. That's all. On a cold snowy afternoon. The same cold snowy day I lost my son... Really, it was nothing.
Let me set the scene. I'm at work looking at the clock knowing Jeran will be home soon, and thinking I just really, really wanted to call and make sure he was ok after our rough morning, and to let him know I'd be home soon.
I called about the time they would usually get home and Megan answered. She said she and Jeran were there, but not Joie. I asked where Joie was and she said she didn't know, that she waited and waited and her feet got cold so she thought maybe Joie got a ride so she walked home.
I then called Tim, who gets home about the same time as the kids and was just pulling into the neighborhood. He drove to the school to find Joie, and couldn't find her. The office staff looked. The PTA Bookfair volunteers looked. No one could find her.
Tim called me, and by then I knew my 3:00 appointment wasn't showing up so I was going to leave. He said he'd start going to all her friends houses looking, and I was on my phone driving home calling friends. One of her friends' older brothers answered the phone and said Joie wasn't at their house, but his sister wasn't home from school yet either and he thought they might be playing in the snow somewhere. Tim got more details, and sure enough, there she was, playing in the snow around the corner from our house.
Seriously, we have only 2 rules about walking home. Rule #1--Wait for each other. Rule #2--Walk home together. It's simple. And yet Megan with cold feet, and Joie with her spontaneous nature (who also claimed cold as her defense and yet was out playing in the snow for an entire hour), found nearly logical explanations for doing it differently.
I'm proud now to report that all our children are home, and have been in our care for the past 31.25 hours without anyone else going missing. We may just yet earn our parent of the year awards!
4 comments:
What a miserable day you had! Kids!!! What will they do next?
I didn't lose two kids in one day, but I have lost two kids on separate days once. And one of those was Joie's dad who definitely marched to his own drummer. Those of you who know him will understand that comment. He had just spent his first day at pre-school, we had picked up his DAD from work and were stopping at 7-11 before going home. At this time, the 7-11 had a little video game room, very tiny. When we checked out, I hollered to the kids, went to the car and they came out and climbed in the back seat. Now to be honest, the kids were ages 3-9 at this point and there were five of them. I'm sure I actually brought the two younger ones out with me, but assumed the three older ones were getting in the other side.
As we drove home, I said 'Nick, tell your Dad about your first day of pre-school. Nick.....Nick......Nick?' I turned around, counted heads and screamed "where's Nick?" We turned around, drove back (now we were only 1/4 a mile down the road, 3 minutes tops) and as we pulled in Nick was walking up and down the sidewalk checking all the cars with tears just starting to roll down his cheeks. I wish I could say that was the last time he didn't pay attention when we told him to get in the car, but at least we never left him again. Maybe that's not a good story to tell Joie.
i just lost austin last night...found myself knocking on the doors of strangers, what a whay to meet your neighbors:)
oh man! what stress these kids put you through!!!! i am glad that they returned home safely. hope you are doing ok too!
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