What a week

I realized that there are some weeks worth forgetting about. Although most of this week was pretty good there were some moments we would rather forget about.

First let me tell you one of the worst phone calls you can get as a parent
"Paul, I can't find Tommy!"
This was the phone call I got on Monday from Marna, who we used to live by before we moved. She is a wonderful mother and such a nice family. We are lucky to have as friends. Dominic and their son Christian are about the same age and are best friends. Tommy and their daughter Alicia are about the same age and also good friends (except when she forces Tommy to put on a tu tu).

Well Dominic and Christian were riding bikes, Tommy wanted to follow them so he ran after them. Once realizing that he wasn't going to catch them, he didn't recognize where he was, thus being lost. He wondered down the block where a lady noticed he had a scared look on his face and it just happened that a police officer was turning the corner coming toward them. By the time the officer got out of his car Marna was already half way down the block.

In typical Marna fashion she hugged and kissed him, no scolding, and just talked to him about leaving. Tommy didn't cry he was just a little scared. WHEW!!!!!!! By this time I was half way to her house when I received the call that they found him, this all happened in about 10 minutes.

After a couple of day passed I really thought out the circumstance. As parents we try to protect our children as best we can, but there are just areas that we cannot and if we tried they would be boarded up in their rooms. This is what I know, Tommy does not cross streets and I know that he doesn't, even in the most tempting situations because I watch him as Dominic crosses the street and Tommy stops dead at the curb. Second, I realized that if there is a predator there probably is not a whole lot I can do to stop them. I can only prepare my kids as best I can and hope of the best. Realistically the chances of a child being picked up and taken is miniscule, fraction of a percentage and if I lived to protect them from that they would not have much of a life.

As Dora says in "finding nemo"
"you can't never let anything happen to him because other wise nothing would ever happen to him..........Not much fun for little harpo."

good point

At 12:12 AM,  Anonymous said...

only a parent can ever know the feeling of a lost child. your heart sinks. you would do almost anything if you could only find your child. marna sounds so very loving and couldn't be a more perfect person to watch your 2 boys. i'm sure her heart sunk to the lowest possible depths when she couldn't find tommy. everything turned out perfect; now tommy has a story to tell about when he got lost and a policeman helped him. this could be a good reference point in his life.
b. anonymous

 

Post a Comment