heart attacks and nervous breakdowns

This past Sunday, I stayed home with a stomach bug and with Jackson who was green and ear infected.

In the late afternoon Tanner asked if he could go out front. Emma wanted to go with him. There are no kids that my kids play with so we said it was okay. My street is quiet and they usually just play up and down, but are always within 2/3 houses of our house. And I can easily see them. 20 minutes went by, I had not heard them and Ryan went out to check on them. They were gone. And so was Tanner's bike.

It was cold outside. And almost 5pm. Ryan walked the street. Then came back and got in his truck and drove the block. He came home to get his cell phone, without them, and the panic set in a bit. I called my LDS neighbors around the block. I went next door to my neighbors super bowl party. We aren't familiar with each other, and so I described what my kids looked like. I peaked in there backyard. I checked the house. And still they were gone.

Ryan came home and told me to call 911.

As I stood outside describing what they looked like, a flood of people started pouring out of my neighbors house. Probably 10 adults and their kids, and then my LDS neighbors came down, and the super bowl party on the other end of the street. In a matter of moments, ATV's for off roading showed up and people were loading in cars to get down to the park and head off to a walking trail by my house. I gave no direction. There was an organized movement of people looking for Tanner and Emma.

I was kept on the line with the dispatch, when word got back from a couple walking a dog that they saw a little girl walking with a boy riding a bike. A good mile away. On the walking trail.

Ryan ran to find them. By the time he got to them, after the neighbor kids on bikes, Tanner was pushing his bike and holding Emma's hand. She was crying. He was crying. Emma said her throat hurt from the cold and that she "told Tanner to take her on a short little walk". Tanner said he tried to put her on his bike so he could push her and offered her his coat, but she said she was just, "wishing and dreaming she was home."

Ryan thanked everyone, I stayed inside and cried. Tanner cried harder. Emma needed some throat medicine. And she wanted to know if she missed dinner. We held the kids and went over safety rules and the "what were you thinking Tanner?" questions.

I definetally feel like I am an attentive mom. Emma and the little ones don't play out front unless I sit there and watch them. Tanner can ride his bike around the corner to the LDS neighbors, but not to school. I drop him off and pick him up everyday. I worry most about stranger danger. More than choking, or illness, or some other awful thing.

And still, Tanner and Emma left our little street. To go for a walk. Tanner knew better. He said so. They were not lost, Tanner had just miscalculated how far the walking trail goes. Especially with Emma's little legs. But mostly, an 8 year old's judgment is just not always wise. And that's what parents are for. So we failed a bit for sure.

He did try to make it better for her. And Emma loves him so much. Ryan told the kids "you gave me an almost heart attack and your mother a nervous breakdown because we love you."

It's nice to know, that even though Super Bowl Sunday was under way. People still have perspective. That lost children are more important. My neighbors are all getting Valentine Cookie Bouquets. And I think that's it. This is going to be the only lost story we will ever have to re-tell in our family.