Amberzzz Alert

So tonight I was working away, putting together a one hour class on everything you ever needed to know about every facet of food storage. (Yeah. That's what I thought too.) Anyway, I was typing and concentrating real hard, in order to get done in time to take my four thousand handouts over to the church to make one hundred thousand copies. The kids all did their chores today (miracle of miracles!) and we didn't even have to dress up. The ones who are not currently on restriction were therefore free to roam the area between the next door neighbors' driveways and their bedrooms. These boundaries are part of The Rules. This apparently was too much square mileage because they decided to move all the crap they have for entertainment out of the house and into the driveway. No, mom. We can't play babies in the playroom. (What is she thinking?) They also couldn't leave the books in the book corner or the blankets on their beds. Or anything at all in the garage. I did venture away from the computer twice to check on the size of the pile on the sidewalk and to make sure it was not spilling out into the street. I do this because I care about the HOA imposed covenants. Tee Hee. And because Santa ain't replacing every dumb thing that gets run over because it was left halfway in the street by careless children. Also to do the 15 minute head count (it's 15 seconds when we're out in public), but that was mostly unnecessary due to their trips to get more crap every 5 minutes. So just when I'm finishing up printing out handout 3-thousand-99, Little Mommy(8) says to me that The Pinkiest(5) is missing. Now, I'm not alarmed mind you, because one, I figure Little Mommy (who is on restriction) is really reporting that The Pinkiest(5) has wandered beyond the driveway boundaries and Little Mommy(8) is desperately hoping to get her sister into trouble too. And two, because if The Pinkiest(5) truly has turned up missing, I can safely assume she is next door, or across the street, or at Sister Teacher's house, or at Old Sister Teacher's house, or at Old Sister Teacher's Neighbor's house- trying to get a sugar fix. (She's on detox until Halloween.) So I gather up my handouts, get the baby, head downstairs and find Little Mommy(8) in the yard, beside herself calling The Pinkiest(5). Bubba(6) is also calling her and is riding up and down the street looking for her. Now I think she is hiding from them because she doesn't want to come in and it is starting to get dark. So I start looking. I walk up and down the street calling her name. Very loudly. (I could be a stage singer if I could only act. My voice is THAT LOUD.) But she is nowhere. Not only that, but every neighbor I know says they haven't seen her for a while. Old Teacher's Husband says, "Check in that van. It's been parked there in front of nothing for an hour and we've never seen it before. We're pretty sure it doesn't belong here." Sadly, I live in a neighborhood that is both too expensive for us to purchase a home (mid-300's) and also the ghetto where every nasty-white trash-scary-person lives. I would not be at all surprised if any one of them or their scary friends kidnapped one of my kids. I actually looked in every one of those van windows while still hollering her name- in spite of the fact that the driver was sitting in it at the wheel. No The Pinkiest(5). Or any other person bound and gagged- so that's good news. I start having a panic attack. I am yelling her name so loudly now, that people are coming out of their houses, jumping in their cars, and driving around to help with the search. After 12 of us looked frantically for another 15 minutes, my friend DramaLady called the cops, gave the description, and they were sending an officer to take the missing persons report. (Meanwhile I was cursing my d#*&@ cell phone. Why don't they have some sort of beeper thing you can push for when you misplace those things?) Then I sent Bubba(6) into the house to check the book corner because my kids often fall asleep in there. It's a cozy little space all their own with puppets and books and pillows and cushions and a beanbag chair. I was hoping that she would be in there. But nope, she wasn't.

She was in her bed with the blanket pulled over her head in such a way that it looked like a pile of blanket with no one under it, so deeply asleep that she couldn't be roused and had no idea that everyone in This State That I Live In had just been shouting her name for the last 25 minutes. She had to walk right past me to get in there but I was so engrossed with the food storage stuff that I did not notice her go in- (probably for another load of whatever items might have slipped through the cracks and not ended up out in the swap meet on the driveway-) and never come out again. Sound the alarm. Stand down. Thank the neighbors. Curl up and die. So embarrassing.

The silver lining is that I got to hear all the other mom's stories about when the same exact thing happened to them. This didn't make me feel any less stupid, mind you- but a little less guilty for troubling them. Amish at Heart's son actually fell asleep playing hide-and-seek. He was a really good hider. Oh the trauma! And to think that Husband missed the whole thing. AND, come to think of it, so did The Pinkiest(5).