week ending july 15, 2007:

Week ending July 15, 2007: This week we lived though our souvenir cold that we brought home from the vacation. After so much running around lately to the beach and the Poconos, it was actually nice to stay home for a few days and just slow down. We did little stuff like run through the sprinkler, blow bubbles, and draw with side walk chalk. Even I ran through the sprinkler a little bit and the kids thought that was the greatest. On Friday morning I found a bird’s nest that had fallen from a tree and brought the kids outside in their PJ’s to see it. They were fascinated and played with it for about ½ hour until they destroyed it. On Saturday we went to their Cousin Natalie’s third birthday party while Casey was offshore fishing (they won the tournament, BTW). The kids were tired and cranky from a week of coughing instead of sleeping, but after a good meal were ready to go in the pool. I told them I had to run to the car to get their bathing suits and when I got back Alex had started eating again, so I took only Chloe inside to get her suit on. When I came back out, Alex was not at the table. As I walked around I realized he was not anywhere in the backyard, and not in the house either. Panic was just starting to set in as I went to the front yard to start roaming the neighborhood in search of him when I saw my brother’s friends (who are also police officers) carrying him back toward the house. Apparently while I was inside with Chloe, Alex had tried to find me and couldn’t, so he decided that I must be at the car (about a block and a half away). The back yard at the party is fenced, the yard is small, and there were about a half dozen adults who know us standing right by the gate, but no one noticed him leave. Well, I learned my lesson. If I’m not going to be within sight of one of the kids, I put another grown up in specific charge. I’ve been kicking myself all day for not doing that in the first place. I had gradually started to trust the kids more and more, but now I’m back pedaling. Today at church there was no plan for kids’ church and the volunteer decided to take the kids outside where there are 3 sprawling playgrounds surrounding the church’s school. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the kids with her, so I missed the sermon and sat outside and she told me about the time she “lost” one of her kids.