When thinking about having a child, I think of holding that precious little one, rocking them to sleep, teaching them to walk and talk.
I think of all the happy moments parents are supposed to have when you have children. I would never have thought about how to I control my child so they don’t run away? I often think of how crazy I am to hire a sitter to come with us on outings because I’m afraid of losing my children. Really, spending hard cash to make sure me and my kids have a good time and all come home together.
Now of course I’m referring to Sebastian. He definitely has a mind of his own and is in his own world. I call him a very curious boy but deep down I say mischievous. He knows not to run off, yet like a bird that has learned to take flight with the wind beneath their wings, off he goes.
I will never forget the time we lost him in the Nature Museum. It’s not a large museum either but yet the kids can walk off. We were playing in the playground area and I had asked a friend to watch him while I used the restroom. When I returned we searched for him and he was nowhere to be found. Panic didn’t set in right away until 2 minutes into the search. He wasn’t answering my calls for him and again it isn’t a large place so no telling where he could have run off. Luckily, he was down towards the water area just playing in the water by himself. He thought nothing of it. This scared me to tears but
I didn’t let him see my cry. I thought if he had then he might get scared himself.
After this time frame, I thought about buying one of those tethers or “child” leashes. Really? See they made this product just for my child. The problem is that he is 3 now and I don’t think I could contain him in one of those. He’d certainly learn to remove it quickly or protest its existence so loudly that people would be begging me to take it off of him.
Today was another one of his run off on mommy and friend. We’ve been to the arboretum many times and the kids know that place like its home. We have a certain path we take each time and didn’t do things we normally do because we had friend’s with us. Astonishingly, Braedon was the first to run off but did it with his friend Evan. The two of them ran off to the frog pond while we were headed to the playground. It took us 2 minutes to realize they weren’t with us or anywhere around us. Luckily, Braedon came down and told us where he’d been. This was my first panic attack of the day.
We are getting ready to leave the playground area and hit another spot. We were gathering up the kids when we noticed Sebastian was missing. Now normally I’m johnny on the spot with them but I was a little relaxed because we had friend’s watching. Also, Jillian now wants to be mobile so I really needed to keep an eye on her so she wouldn’t be in harm’s way. So, I guess you could say I was a little distracted. I gather up Braedon and made a swoop around the place looking for Sebastian. Now I wasn’t as panicked with Braedon like I was at the Nature Museum. Braedon rarely runs off on me and generally can’t be without me for a few moments. Sebastian is fearless and would make a bee line for anything without hesitation. So certainly I couldn’t imagine him going to the frog pond but I headed that way while my friend went to look around the area we were just in. She phoned me to state he was in the little garden watering plants.
Oh, I couldn’t believe it. But really I could. No joking, one minute they are there and the next they are running off.
I wouldn’t feel such panic if Sebastian would answer me when I called for him. I want him to be free to do the things he wants to and encourage him to do so but he needs to let me know where he’s headed.
I just don’t know how to keep him close by without tying him down. I can tell him how much it scares me or that someone could take him but he doesn’t care. He was free as a bird and said to me, “I’m just watering the plants.”
