A first time for Everything
If you live for years with bolters and escape artists, along with a slew of dead bolts, padlocks and safety chains, it can be difficult to break the panic habit.
I hear the click of the front door and make a dash for it. I miss him by a second and scramble out into the garden, dressing gown aflap. He shuts the garden gate on me as I arrive and takes two steps out into the road as I yell and slip through the white picket. He turns to blink at me as my hands travel around his shoulders suddenly very close to his throat, “wot?” I search for my calm tone as the fabric gapes at my neckline, exposed.
“I need you to come back inside ……where you’ll be safe.”
“I am safe. I’m waitin for the bus.”
“Oh…….well wait with me…….inside.”
“It’s o.k. mom.” I can almost see his halo of innocence, his sincerity, “I wasn’t gonna run away or anything…….why would I?”
I recall a thousand different reasons and even more occasions, the millions of metres that I have chased my children all over San Jose but for now I’ll just focus on this one.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:03 am
How sweet…
July 24th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Such tremendous progress. Fabulous. Does he still hare off sometimes or has he matured out of that?
July 24th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Yeah mom, why would he? What a fellow! I still have the ‘door is open’ beep active on my alarm system even though Patrick hasn’t been a ‘bolter’ for at least a year. Or two years? My,the time does fly.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:15 am
3 years after my student who would cut anything (hair, clothes, our therapy ball) graduated, I *still* pick up scissors I see lying abandoned on a student’s desk and slip them in my back pocket.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:16 am
I think that the hardest thing for me is forgetting..I find myself thinking..”will I ever be able to let them grow up”..It is so hard to untighten the grasp I worked so hard to get..and I have to remember that because of that grasp-they have grown. It is so hard to let go..and when I hear things like “Mama, what are you so worried about? I would NEVER do..(fill in the blank)..I am amazed…exposed as well. beautiful post.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I know what you mean- I developed ‘Gate Sonar’ after my lil boy with Autism figured out how to open the gate outside the yard and ran across the street and into the wild, sandy yonder. (I live in the desert) I didn’t even know he was gone until his caretaker brought him back into the house, pink, drenched with sweat, and looking very flustered!
July 24th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
It will no doubt take baby steps but we may eventually be able to hear the creak of the door open without our hearts flying up into throats. At least that’s what I tell myself.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Amen. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to rest easy – especially after what we endured last week. But as always, your boys give me hope – that maybe, just maybe, my heart will not race at the sound of the front door opening.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Oh boy do I know what you are talking about. I am a gater, latcher, etc and it’s hard to break that habit. UGH!