Vanished

We are in the heart of summer.  We have done many fun activities and have stayed busy, but we have had our quiet down time of unscheduled "nothing" too.  It is not always super easy especially since I allow for NO MEDICATION days!  Those days allow his little body time to feel hungry, to rest as it will and to re-set.  They are not always the hardest days and I don't always stay home on those days.... we take it as we can allowing him to experience his world off medication.  It is not to say the wheels don't fly off.....

The hardest part of summer has been the disappearing.  Perhaps the worst in recent weeks was yesterday when he just totally disappeared when I was in the bathroom.  I heard him then I didn't.  I went to check and he was gone.  Just gone.  Vanished.  He was dressed in nothing but a bright yellow pair of underpants.  He had a bike I noted because one of them was missing (I take stock of the equipment right away).

Because it has happened so often I don't panic right away.  If you have never had a child disappear, congratulations... you do not know the panic it causes.  But don't judge me because it happens frequently.... this is how my child is built... he has done it since he was big enough to walk, in summer and winter, at home and at the store... each time is just as terrifying as the last.  It has been extremely better since we moved to the country and we just got complacent.

I call his name.  I walk around the outside of the house, I check the inside of the house.  I walk to the street and look around. Panic starts to set in.  Yesterday he was GONE.  There were people out and not one of them had seen a little boy with unruly hair in yellow underwear....  I was getting afraid.

I had no idea which way to go on the street, no idea.  He was just GONE.

And just as suddenly 15 minutes later, he was there.  Just back on the street, riding his bike, no concern at all.  I was angry.  Frustrated does not begin to describe me.  Livid perhaps.  Mostly just afraid, anxious and upset.  He parked his bike and looked straight at me and said "what did I do? I'm sorry I did not have a helmet on"..... SERIOUSLY child, a helmet is not the issue.  He had been 2 doors down, his bike had been with others so I overlooked it in my panic.  (Apparently they don't get concerned when my kid shows up in his underpants... nothing about us is surprising....)  I however was not in a good space.

How do you begin to get a child who is unafraid of people to understand that there are BAD people (or tricky or unkind or what ever word you want to use).  People who snatch children.  Maybe they drive by, maybe they are visiting a neighbor, maybe they live around our street... people who will abuse a child, take them away or worse.  How do you get him to understand that he should not just drive off in his underwear and trust that things are good?  How do you make a child who does not comprehend "asking permission" to ask before he goes anywhere?  How do you describe over and over that there are people who are just not good out there?  How do you make him understand that his mom must know where he is all the time so that I can keep him safe.... For the life of me I have yet to figure this one out....  And yet I remain hopeful.

Yesterday he saw me cry.  And he got yelled at.  His consequences are that he can't leave the driveway for the rest of the week on any of his riding stuff and no technology for 2 days - NONE.  That is not to say we are staying home for 2 days because we aren't...   It took me a long while to calm down and for the panic to subside.  My dreams were clouded with fear of loosing my little boy, of not being able to tell the police where he went, of the worst case.

Today is a new day... we get a fresh start... we can't hold on to what happened yesterday but we can gently remind him of the need to let his grown up know all the time where he is going.  We can try to train him to make an effort to get permission..... We try and keep on going.