Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Escapee

Holy Moly! I've already told this story to most friends and family, but it's the most 'book-worthy' of any post I have about the kids, so here we go.....

This morning was a crazy one. We had car battery issues, and lack of gas issues, and schedule issues. So all of the stars lined up causing Lehr to be at the gas station with my car, the garage door up, me in the shower, and Maddux waking up at the exact same time. For the last month, Maddie has been climbing out of her crib and coming into my bathroom as soon as she wakes up. 99% of the time I'm still in the shower, so she hangs out and talks to me until I'm done. Today, however, she did NOT come into my room. Instead she ignored the loud water noise that should have tipped her off to the fact that I was bathing, and she instead went downstairs, against everything she normally would have done. She decided to open the door to the garage (where an alarm would normally have sounded, but we in still in construction mode, so no such alarm exists). At this point she sees that my car is gone. And instead of noticing that Daddy's car was still there (and, oh yeah, that SHOWER sound), she gets scared that she's home all alone and leaves the house.

Here is where she gets smart. Instead of wandering through the streets, or walking all of the way up to the bus stop, she goes right across the cul-de-sac to our good friends' house. Their garage door and house door was open in prep for an exit of their own, so she just walked right in and asked, "Where's Mommy?"

As frustrated as I am with the circumstances leading to her exit from our house, I am overjoyed that she went to a house we know well and trust, and I'm ever grateful that they were home to welcome her with open arms and reassure her. All day I struggled with reminding her that we NEVER leave the house without permission and complimenting her on smart thinking about where she should go if she were in trouble. Gray hairs? Check.

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