Monday is not even over yet and I’ve stressed more in the last 6 hours than I do in an entire month.
One of my older kids flew for the first time today, by himself, all the way across the country to my parents house in Florida via a connection in Atlanta. After getting him up at 3:45 am to make a 6:45 flight, I could hardly wait for the his phone call that he arrived at the gate in Tampa to my parents waiting there for him.
While I tried to kill the time waiting patiently for his call, I dropped my daughter off at her friends house and then went to the gym to try and relieve some tension. One of my other sons was home by himself. When I left, he was still sleeping and I assumed I would find him in the same place when I got back from the gym.
After my workout I called the house to see if he wanted me to pick him up something for breakfast but, he didn’t answer the phone.
I arrived home to an quiet, empty house, he was no where to be found. The front door was unlocked, TV was on and the dogs were asleep on the couch. I called his cell phone and he didn’t answer. When that happens I usually send him a text because we all know that it’s not so cool to answer your phone when your mom calls. Five minutes went by, then 10 minutes and no reply. I was starting to get a little nervous. His bike was still in the garage along with his skateboard and scooter, very odd. After calling some friends in the neighborhood to see if he was at their house, I learned that no one had seen him. An hour had passed since I had first called the house to talk with him, where the heck was he?
A friend of mine stopped over to drop some things off and he asked if I could track him down through his phone. Duh, why didn’t I think of that, use the dang Family Locator they we pay Verizon for every month. The locator gave me an address a few minutes away but it also showed that his phone was within 1.82 miles of that location. Not a big help there. We drove over to the address and it was not a house of one of his friends. After a knock on the door, we learned there was no one home.
It was back to the neighborhood, he wasn’t at the community pool, not at any of his friends and the streets were vacant. I then thought to go ask one of the girls he sometimes hangs out with to see if she would blast out a text or a tweet to see if anyone had seen him (Mom gets and A here for putting social media to a good use). Within minutes, she had a ton of replies, but again, no one had seen him.
It had now been two hours and I’m starting to panic so, I called the Sheriff’s Department. After I went through what was going on, they told me to relax and that they’d find him. Yeah, ok, relax, yeah right!
Now I have tears in my eyes, this was so not like him to not answer his phone or leave a note that he was going somewhere. Another one of my friends was out driving around, checking the bathrooms in the park and writing down license plates of “suspicious” vehicles in the neighborhood.
My two friends and I had met back in the front of my house when I finally was able to reach my husband, who was out of town. Apparently, my son had mentioned to my husband the other day that he MAY go to the gym with one of his friends today, nice of someone to tell me.
A few minutes later, a car pulls up in front of my house and guess who gets out of the car, my son. When I asked him where he had been, he replied, “at the gym, I told you last night that I was going.” Well, he must have told his other mom because he never said anything to me! And his phone, why didn’t he reply? Well, it was at home on the couch of course, and it was turned off. What a great use of technology.
When I stated that we need to communicate a little better, he replied, “you need to listen a little better!” At this point, yes, I was relieved that I found him but, I wanted to launch him threw the front door. He then makes the comment, “mom, if someone were going to kidnap me, they’d probably end up bringing me back!” He does have a point, this kid can talk your ear off and would probably drive a kidnapper insane!
My friend offered up a suggestion that is a rule in their house. If the kids say that they are going somewhere, they need to follow it up with a text. She too has four kids and crazy days and it just helps keep track of where everyone is.
That rule, went into affect in our house TODAY.
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