Day 363 ~ Runaway Return

December 29, 2014

My Instead: After agreeing to watch four kids and then dealing with an unfortunate accident, I had to search for my pseudo grandson because he ran away.

Who does this? I did…I babysat my grandkids so my kids could take their stepmother Phyllis out for her birthday. I even watched Phyllis’ granddaughter so her daughter could be there too. It’s okay. I enjoy my time with the kids and hoped for another fun evening with all of them.  

My son and daughter-in-law dropped off my grandkids, Abbey and Andy, along with Jalee, my ex-husband’s wife’s granddaughter. Stay with me now. Then my daughter dropped off my pseudo grandson Danny, whom she got guardianship of back in September. My actual grandson Tyler was with his other grandma. The final tally was four kids from 2 to 12 versus only one of me. I can handle this. Or can I?

I asked the kids if they wanted some warm chocolate chip cookies and, of course, they gave a resounding “yes”. After doling out some raw cookie dough to each of them, I got those “homemade” cookies in the oven. Then we all went to the basement to set up the bean bag game. We played around a while until I remembered I had cookies in the oven. I went up to tend to them when Abbey came up yelling that Andy had fallen down the stairs. I ran to the top of steps and found Andy, huddled up at the bottom, crying a scared cry, not so much an injured one. He seemed to be okay to me, as far as a serious injury goes. I comforted him while I asked the three “witnesses” what had happened. Accusations and rebuttals filled the sound waves until I finally said “Abbey, you stay in this room; Jalee, you go in that room; and Danny, you go upstairs to the toy room.” I sat with Andy a while longer and then went up to the kitchen to mind the cookies and further console him. When he had settled down, I went to the toy room and found NO Danny. WTF! I yelled down to Abbey and Jalee to come up. They were fine and realized that I was freaking out that Danny was nowhere to be found. We searched the whole house, I yelled outside for him, and then we searched the house some more.

I could NOT believe he would run away from something like this! The girls had no problem with the “time out” that I had invoked to separate the three of them and defuse the situation. Danny, on the other hand, was somehow traumatized and ESCAPED. Escape what? The wrath of Grandma Mary!?

The rest of our “fun” evening was spent searching for Danny, driving in all directions and returning home every so often to check on his hopeful return. I ranted continually, disbelieving that this was really happening. I felt confident that I had handled the “crisis” the best way any parenting manual would have advised. Then the horror would resurface as I wondered where Danny was and what he was experiencing. It was a not-so-holy terror. I constantly preached to the girls two things: Never goof off on stairs (anyone at any age can fall down them) and NEVER, NEVER run away.

When we returned to my house for the THIRD TIME to see if Danny had come back, we found him in my living room, wearing his weathered-rosy checks, watching TV. He and I took a trip down the hall to my bedroom to talk. I heard myself sounding like a broken record: Never goof off on stairs (anyone at any age can fall down them) and NEVER, NEVER run away. I reminded Danny that my concern at the time was Andy…it was not to point fingers. I could tell that he was not in the place to hear the sense that I was making. He’s 12. But I still continued with my tirade and my eventual lull, hoping perhaps some of it would saturate.  

The evening did not go as I had originally imagined. That one little circumstance changed its course. And the ripple will continue whether or not we see it on the surface. How deep it lies and how effectual it is…well, TBD.