Ok.....so, tonight at work I was telling some stories about Nick and I had this sudden, depressing feeling that I'm a terrible mother. It all started when we dispatched a call about a missing 10 year old child with Autism. The mother told us that she had not seen the child in 2 hours. So, one of my co-workers asked me, "wouldn't you keep a closer eye on a kid with Autism?" He went on to ask me if I had a "leash" that I used with Nick. Yes...he was serious. I should mention that the un-named co-worker is a single guy with no kids. Anyway, I told him that Nick is a tad old for a leash, and that we have tried similar things and Nick freaks out when we use them. I remember trying to use one of these contraptions at the Iowa State Fair when Nick was about 2 years old. He laid down on the ground and refused to walk at all. As soon as you took the backpack off of him, he was tearing down the street like an escaped convict!
So, the point is.....I was explaining to this co-worker that Nick has no regard for safety rules. He routinely launches himself down an entire flight of stairs, runs away from us and generally beats the crap out of himself and his brother. Nick has no built in fear when he becomes separated from us in any situation. I started relating all of the times we have "lost" Nick and suddenly realized that he has escaped pretty often. One of the most memorable times was when we went to Silver Dollar City (which is a large amusement park type place for anyone who doesn't know). Nick and Daddy were playing in a very large water park type area of the park. Daddy told Nick that they were done playing and started down the stairs with Nick right behind him. Well....apparently Nick decided that he was not done playing and he turned around and went right back inside without his daddy. By the time Allen made it out of the area, I was standing there asking where Nick had gone? Allen turned around to show me he was right behind him, only to find that Nick was long gone. We both panicked and immediately started looking nearby for Nick and calling his name. (not that Nick really responds to his name, but we were scared....so give us a break.) After several minutes, there was still no sign of Nick, so Grandpa and Grandma joined in the search. We looked frantically for a good 10 minutes before I finally spotted Nick in a whole other area of the park. I took off at a dead sprint and found him happy as a lark, playing with some stupid squishy balls in a play area. He hadn't even realized that we were gone and didn't know enough to be scared. This was just last summer, so he was 3 1/2 years old....most kids would have been searching for their mommy and crying....but not Nick.
I related another story when we were all visiting at Grandpa and Grandma's house. We were hanging out in the living room and Nick was terrorizing the cat and generally causing havoc. (nothing unusual here) Grandpa went upstairs for some reason and I thought Nick had followed him. About 30 minutes later, Grandpa came back downstairs and said, "where's Nick?" Well....we weren't too concerned yet, but we started looking around the house in his usual places. We figured Nick had gotten tired and laid down on his bed and fallen asleep. He's done this multiple times at Grandpa and Grandma's house and it was fairly late in the evening. After a fair amount of time spent searching the house, we still couldn't find Nick. At this point, I was holding the house phone just waiting to dial 911 and have the police come help us find him. I couldn't have cared less what anyone at work thought about me losing my kid....I was just so scared. Just as I was ready to call, Grandpa decided to go look outside because he realized that the garage door had been left up. This terrified me, because Nick is able to open the door from the house to the garage and we normally keep the garage door closed to prevent an escape. Sure enough, Grandpa found Nick outside.....he had climbed quietly into our car and was sitting in his car seat just hanging out! Even now, just thinking about how differently that could have gone makes me shiver. What if he had decided to walk down the street and either got lost or got taken by someone driving by? So many things could have happened...but thank god they didn't.
Hopefully Nick will develop those natural fears that most kids have much earlier than the age of four. Until then, we just have to watch him like a hawk when we're out in public. We have also discussed putting alarms on the doors that go outside. At least that way we'll know if he does try to go outside alone. Even if some kind person were to find him, Nick couldn't tell them where he lives or who his mommy is. He doesn't know his phone number and heck....he doesn't even know his last name! We have just now gotten to the point that if we ask, "What is your name?" He will respond, "Nick." In all reality, I know that I'm not a terrible mother, and I know that other parents lose their kids and it makes them feel awful too. It just scares me SO much more that Nick doesn't understand that he is lost :( In case anyone was wondering, the call I was talking about at work? The 10 year old girl with Autism was found safe and sound!
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