Wednesday 2 November 2011

Flying the coop...

I was in two minds whether to share this one or not.  After all, I have worked hard to cultivate an aura of being in control and knowing what is going on (not!).  But having spoken to several of my friends, who have all said "That happened to me too!"  I feel a bit better and will share it anyway, even though my sense of competence as a mom has taken a hefty knock!  So here goes:


It's a bit of a cliche to have a nightmare happen on Halloween.  I mean - how cheesy can you get, right?  Far better for any plot of interest to happen on another day of the year - Valentine's Day, for example, or perhaps Labour Day Weekend.


Life is not like movie plots however.  My own personal worst nightmare happened on Halloween this year.  As in all good tales, it happened when I least expected it.  The two boys asked (innocently enough, I thought) if they could go and play outside with the dogs, as they often do.  I was feeding Little Miss Snoopy at the time, so said they could go ahead, and if they needed me they could just call.  We have a fully-fenced garden - what could happen, right?  Wrong!  A few minutes after they had disappeared outside, I became aware that it was very quiet out there - you guessed it - too quiet.  I immediately put Little Miss Snoopy down and went to investigate.  What had seemed like a perfectly safe garden was obviously not - the boys were nowhere in sight.  Inevitably, denial was the first emotion - I spent quite a few minutes running around frantically in what is actually quite a small garden, looking under plants that are obviously too small to hide two very large three-year-olds.  All the while, I was screeching their names like a banshee and sounding more hysterical with each passing moment.  They were nowhere to be seen.


I searched for about five minutes before making a wild call to the Sweetpea.  Then I grabbed the little girl and started running up and down our road looking for them.  Its funny, but normally I find it really difficult to even walk up from the post box to our front door after fetching the mail (yes, I am that unfit).  However, adrenalin lent wings to my feet and I managed to run up and down the road, carrying a ten kilogram baby, as though I was strolling through a mall, and scarcely even breathed harder.


On my second trip down the road, surrounded by ghosts, goblins and ghouls all out for a bit of Halloween fun, who should I meet coming calmly up the path, as though nothing was wrong? The boys, of course.  they didn't even have the grace to look shamefaced as I grabbed hold of them, crying hysterically.  They merely looked at each other somewhat confusedly as if to say, "Now what's wrong with her?"



When the story finally emerged, it turns out that they had boosted each other over the very large wall, and, seeing all of the interesting people in costume walking past, followed them down the road to a house three doors down where a Halloween party was in full swing.  No one even appeared to notice the two extras wandering around.  After a while, the boys got bored and came home.  The Sweetpea, when he arrived home, was left to deal with the situation, while I tried to get control of my shattered nerves.  Needless to say, the boys are not going to go out into the garden again anytime soon.


Not my proudest moment as a mother!  I have come to the conclusion that:
One child, playing quietly = relatively innocent.
Twins, playing quietly together = hatching a plot of diabolical proportions.


Do you have things like this happen to you?  Or is it just your worst nightmare come true?  Let me know!

2 comments:

  1. It has happened to me before and it is a really frightening feeling, especially as we live on a very busy road.
    Bevan once got down the street a few houses down at about age 2 before he was brought back by a passer-by. (!!!) I had been breastfeeding Christopher indoors at the time and really focussed.
    It is Christopher we have to watch closely though, Bevan has become quite responsible about it.

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  2. How horrible for you too! And also glad to hear it hasn't only happened to me (selfish, I know!). There is nothing like the fear you feel at that time - I was shaking so hard that the next few days my muscles were aching!

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