Weekend Journal

We're busy checking off items from "Things We Must Do Before Summer Is Over" list. We're having a hard time getting Yankee tickets, so we headed down the shore instead.

The kids were very pumped up. When we got to the beach, both boys made a running dash for the water. Steve and I lugged the cart of towels and shovels across the sand, but dumped things when we saw the boys weren't deceasing their speed. They needed to be restrained.

The waves were big and choppy. A tropic storm off the Carolinas was stirring things up. A yellow flag warned people to stay close to shore. Wave after wave came tossing people in air, chewing them up, and returning them back to shore without their bathing suits.

Jonah was a little distressed about seeing all the naked people whimper back to their families. He whispered in a horrified, scarred for life voice, "I saw her body." "It's okay, Jonah", I said, "we all have bodies." He was dubious.

We had to keep Ian on an imaginary one foot leash. He was in sensory heaven. Water, waves, sand. He ran and ran and rejoiced. But it was too dangerous to let him go. Even in the shallow areas, he still got knocked off his feet several times. We can't trust him to stay close to us or to even hear us with all that background noise, so the first two hours were very stressful. Strict warnings were issued, but he can never be trusted. After a while, the boys learned some healthy fear and became occupied digging holes and fortresses in the sand. It was almost relaxing.

We stayed the entire day, and I only sprouted three more white hairs.

This morning, Steve's folks called, while he and Jonah were at church. It was a long conversation, and Ian was messing around with his trains in another room. Until he wasn't. Where was he? I got off the phone and ran from attic to basement calling him and searching. Was he playing hide and seek? I looked in closets and beds. I listened for giggles. Nothing. Had he gone outside to ride his bike without telling me? The bike was in the garage. Finally, I saw a little blond head in the car.

He was playing the DS in the car. He is afraid to play the DS without the plug, because it might run out of power in the midst of a game and the world would end. He couldn't find the indoor plug, so he had used the adapter for the car.

The problem was that it was 100 degrees outside.

I tried the car door. It was locked. I banged on the window, but he was too absorbed in the game. I ran in the house and found the car keys. When I got to him, he was beet red and the sweat was pouring off his head. I brought him into the kitchen and put cold paper towels on his head. He started passing out. So, I carried him upstairs and threw him into the shower with all of his clothes on.

He was shocked. Finally, he started crying. I had gotten his favorite t-shirt wet.

When Jonah was six months old, Steve and I congratulated ourselves for not killing the baby. We figured that it was all down hill from there. Wrong.

Comments

[Amy P]

Yowzers, that was a close call. Did you see the story of the West Palm Beach woman whose kid died after being shut up in an SUV while the mom was having her nails done for her wedding? I've seen a bunch of finger-pointing at the mom, but at least at this point, it sounded to me like the kid was supposed to be somewhere else, but slipped back into the SUV.

[Dr. Manhattan]

I winced reading this.

[Lisa V]

Oh, Laura, how scary. Glad it all ended well.

[bj]

People who know me don't believe me ('cause they think this particular freak out is so strange), but I am basically unable to play hide and seek with my kids because it freaks me out so. I am, of course, actually unable to keep my eye on them at all times (though I'll admit I'd be tempted to buy a chip, if it let me track them at all times on a high enough resolution map), but if I can't find them, when I'm actually looking for them (even if they're just "hiding") I freak out.

I'm glad everything turned out OK.

[Elizabeth]

ayiyiyi. Glad it turned out ok.

N once climbed into the storage ottoman in my bedroom and fell asleep there. We were about 30 seconds from calling the police when we found him.

[Janice]

It's really scary parenting a kid who's so focused, I know. We've been lucky that autistic youngest never has been interested in heading outside the house on her own except when she's in full tantrum mode, threatening to run away. At least we're alerted to the threat, then!

[Dr. Manhattan]

Thankfully, apartment living does put some limits on the escapability factor. Ours had a stage a few months ago where he liked to open the door and run down the hallway for a few minutes, but nothing more than that. Whenever we are in houses of relatives of friends, he does try to escape more often (though the unfamiliar surrounding surely have something to do with that), and the ease of accessing the outdoors is probably a factor.