So it is about 8:00 am and I am getting ready for work when my SO yells for me to come to the front door immediately. There, banging on the door, is a little Hispanic boy - about 2 or 3 years old - wearing nothing but blue Pampers. No shoes or shirt. He appears to have Downs Syndrome. There is no one else outside and this is not a neighborhood kid that we have ever seen.
The minute the door was open, he pops in the house.
OK - time to dial 911.
The operator suggested bringing him in the house and she would send someone over. SO figures the kid might be hungry and he was.
Cereal and milk. Then the kid looks in the fridge and the cantaloupe seemed to look good as well.
We said no to the potato chips, but from his hand signals, Katie
Couric was not doing it for him, so we watched some news in Spanish.
We said no to his pointing at the Coca Cola in the fridge.
We also said no again regarding the chips.
He ate his cereal and the cantaloupe.
About twenty minutes later, two of Las Vegas’ finest appear at the door and I let them in. No, we did not know the kid, no we had not seen him before. One of the officers went and banged on a few neighbors doors and the other officer tried to get the boy’s name (no luck) and then took him out front.
They figured he might have come from one of the apartment complexes, but they are all pretty far from the house.
At any rate, our little visitor was then given a ride in a police car
and he seemed to like that.
At about 9:45, SO looked out the window and saw two women on the street hysterically looking for someone.
The story:
A neighbor’s daughter arrived early this morning from California, put her son in den to watch tv and then she fell asleep from the long drive. In the meantime, her mother was still asleep from working nights.
It wasn’t until 9:30 they noticed the boy was no longer in den watching TV.
It seems the boy was able to reach up, unlock the front door and take a little hike in the neighborhood without anyone noticing.
As of now, the boy has not yet been returned, but at least it looks like there will be a happy end after
That’s ok Lucretia…it was one of those gremlin things where I posted, but somehow the message was not attached, so I had to quickly cut and paste it back on.
Yeah, but I have to admit, I have whole new respect for parents of 2 year olds…our house looked like a cyclone hit it (cereal bowls, milk glass, juice glass, cereal spilled on the kitchen floor) and the kid was there all of 20 minutes!
I have my own “Police at my house this morning” story. A few years ago after working late at the office I couldn’t seem to find my car keys anywhere. Eventually, I gave up and called my wife to have her come get me with the intention of calling a locksmith at a later date. Now, the car I was driving to work at the time was my beater. Bad paint job, car stereo removed quite a while ago by my brother, 15 years old. Fast forward to 8am the next day…
Doorbell rings.
I stay in bed while the wife answers the door.
Wife: “Umm… Honey? The police are here and wanted to know if you’re alright…”
Me (bleary eyed, halfway awake, half alarmed, half amused… yes, I know… that’s a lot of halves): “Yes, I’m here and I’m fine.”
Apparently my keys were found in the parking lot approximately 15 feet from my vehicle with the vehicle door left open (I have no idea how the car door got open). That combined with the fact that my stereo was missing led police to believe there was foul play involved.
When I got to work that morning I was inundated by concerned queries from coworkers regarding what happened. I guess rumors were flying around that I’d been “mugged” and was “missing”. Anyhow, it’s nice to have people concerned about you.
Man, this little boy seems like quite an intrepid adventurer. I mean, he enters your house on his own, not to mention getting to your house on his own, seems to really know what he wants in a breakfast, and was able escape from his playpen and get out the door! I mean, who is this kid, Tommy Pickles?
A note to all prospective parents: The TV is not an effective babysitter. I’ve fallen asleep twice while I was supposed to be watching my kids. Twice they got outside and in one case my daughters diaper had completely fallen off and she was running around naked in the yard and my son was only wearing underwear and socks. Supreme embarassment ensued when my neighbor rang the doorbell and asked if I knew my kids were outside.
Naked runaway child! That happened to me! My son scaled the patio wall and walked about 2 blocks to the complex park and was riding the merry-go-round naked and just singin’ his heart out! My girlfriend called me and said she spotted said runaway. I kept his bedroom door tied shut after that.
Oh, and my husband and I found a baby in the street one day. Standing in the middle of the road in just a diaper. I spotted a somewhat older child and asked if he knew the baby. He pointed me to the right house. Mom was very freaked and very thankful.
The police returned my “little brother” (naked) in the middle of a small get together the parents were having. The policeman gave us fodder to humiliate him for the rest of his life by stating:
“He was standing on Middlefield Road playing with his pecker”
Last summer we had a tot wander into our apartment as if he belonged there. I was in my room-hear the door open. Yelled for Little Miss, who I thought was in the bath but you never know, right?
Simultaneously from the bathroom and the living room I heard “WHAT??”
Uhhh…
This tyke was about 3, have NO clue whether a boy or a girl, very dirty, pull ups hanging off his/her butt smelly. By the time I got out to the living room tyke was drinking my Coke and sitting on the couch
Took the kid around he building to see if anyone knew who s/he was (couldn’t get a name). Nothing.
We were standing outside talking to people when a teenaged boy came bolting around the corner and yelled “THERE YOU ARE!”-at which point tyke started running down the sidewalk. By the time he caught tyke, tyke had been in my ‘care’ for over an hour.
I have to wonder what could possibly be the adaptive advantage of the human larval form doing everything it can to maim or kill itself while it’s between the ages of eighteen months and eighteen years.
My next door neighbor used to watch her great-grandson. He was, I think, about two when one day I went out to get the mail and glanced over to see him tearing down the sidewalk from her house, heading for the street. I took off after him, catching up and grabbing him just as a car sped by…going too fast…I don’t know for sure it would have hit him, but it certainly LOOKED like it would have.
Gramma had had the screen door locked, and for the very first time he had figured out how to unlock it. He had never even showed interest in doing that before. Gramma and I were BOTH shaking and hugging him and TOTALLY scared spitless. Patrick’s comment? “Patic BIG boy!” (He couldn’t say his R’s yet.) Kids that age are escape artists, THAT’S for sure!
One day when I lived on Ft. Carson, I looked out my kitchen window while I was feeding my baby and saw my neighbor’s three-year-old riding down the middle of the street on her Big Wheel with a plastic bucket completely covering her head. She had been taking her nap, and Mom ran down to the basement to put in load of clothes in the washer. In that short space of time she woke up (maybe!), got out of her room, unlocked the front door, got on her Big Wheel, stuck the bucket on her head and rode off. Her mom was one of those high-strung moms…I don’t think she ever forgave herself for going down to the basement, even though nothing serious happened. And Rachel was one of those really predictable sleepers…always took a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, never woke up early, especially not an hour early. Not that day, though!
A friend of mine has quite the tale. Back when she was little (like, 30 years ago!) and living in Isreal, they had a covered “parking area” for strollers and baby carriages outside the grocery store. Important to note: the babies would stay in them – sounds kind of shocking by North American standards, but at that time, it was considered perfectly safe. “Snatching” a baby or harming a child in any way was simply unthinkable. It was such a different world then…
There was a canopy above to shield the babies from the hot sun, and an attendant who just made sure that no babies made a get-away, or became ill. Security was otherwise pretty lax.
My friend went the the store with her mom and baby sister. Her mom left the stroller at the drop-off and brought my then toddler-aged friend in the store with her. Shopping went pretty smoothly considering she had a toddler in tow.
After they’d got home and had unloaded the groceries, they were taking the elevator up to their condo. My young friend asked:
“Aren’t we bringing my little sister home?”
Panic ensued. Yet, when they got back to the grocery store, baby Renat was still snoozing peacefully, though she’d sucked her bottle dry.
The mom never forgave herself and whenever she was angry, my friend, the big sister, was always sure to remind Renat “if it weren’t for me, you’d have been lost forever!”
And here I thought my story was strange…but reading what you guys have all written, it really is a miracle that kids live to the age of 5.
My friends have all had a field day with this story…several have decided that our house is perfect day care and have threatened to drop their kids off in the morning.
My brother can hardly wait for the COPS show to show us in our underwear being hauled off during an AMBER alert.
Another wag said, “How could you give him cereal?! What if he was lactose intolerant!?”
My cousin was happy to know that when her 78 year old mother comes to visit us in October, at least I know to put her in pampers and call 911…(she is one odd cousin by the way).
I am wondering if this happened because we recently painted the entryway sideboard red…is this, like, a bad feng shui thing to do?
The statement made by every parent upon hearing how someone else’s child disappeared when he couldn’t have - “There but for the grace of God goes my little angel.”
The Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan and I were watching The Little Mermaid on video. Shodan Jr., who was two and a half at the time, wasn’t interested, and was playing nicely on the porch. The door was fastened securely by a hook and eye, too high up for any shenanigans. I thought.
Ariel finishes a song, and my Daddy Radar kicks in. “It’s too quiet on the porch. Something is amiss.” Sure enough, my beloved son had taken the central cardboard tube from a roll of Christmas wrapping paper, reached up, unhooked the door, and had gone over the wall. I glanced out the door just in time to see little Houdini in his yellow jammies disappearing down the street. He stayed on the sidewalk, and ours was a fairly quiet street, but after my heart started up again, I beat feet after the star of the Great Escape.
Was he sorry for what he had done? Not even a little bit, and he is/was waaay too cute when he was giggling to scold. So I turned into a prison epic, calling out “Release the dogs! Death to the rest of you if he makes it out! Stop him, you fools!”
Then I picked him up and condemned him to bread and water in his crib. OK, really it was a graham cracker, but I meant it to be punishment.
