Mommy Memories

I thought it would be fun to periodically post a memory of my children's fiascoes. As school is starting soon, I am reminded of something that happened 2 years ago shortly after school started. My youngest, Kate, is very precarious. One early morning after the rest of my kids were off to school, I noticed the house was unusually quiet. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I got dressed and went to find her. I looked all through the house, and then I started looking outside. There are lots of kids in the neighborhood her age so I figured she could be at any number of homes. I started knocking and calling her name, but no one had seen her. After looking everywhere possible, the search turned frantic. We had neighbors driving around the area, we had neighbors calling down the ward list, we had neighbors searching the field behind our house and looking in every window well in the area, and eventually we called the police. It was a sickening moment when the police officer walked through my whole entire house looking for my daughter. Even more upsetting was the phone call I had to make to Max to tell him our 4 year old daughter had been missing for way over an hour. It is funny how your sense of reason goes out the window at a time like this. Every possible scenario went through my head as I wondered where my daughter was. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kate came from the neighbors garage. Apparently, she had wanted to play at their house, and when no one answered their door, she just crawled under the garage door which had been left open just enough for the cat. She had been happily playing in her friends empty house while the entire neighborhood was frantically searching for her. I was never so happy to see her and I fell to the grass in a heap when she came walking over. I asked her later "why didn't you open the door when you heard me knocking?" Her response was classic. "Mom, it was their house!" So, to a 4 year old, it is totally fine to crawl under the garage door, and go inside the house to play at someone else's house, but it is not okay to answer their door.

Kate the Beauty Queen

Kate the Mud Monster

Kate at Pre-School Graduation