Escape through the window

We’ve had the privilege of having the same sweet lady take care of our kids, for the most part, for the last seven years. She’s seen about everything and knows my children almost as well as I do. She loves them and cares for them when I am away and they are alive and healthy when I return. I consider it a huge success every time I return home to find my kids, and the babysitter, sleeping like babies and in one piece. The babysitter doesn’t sleep, of course…

The other night, almost seven years after she first started taking care of our wee ones, we came home to find her a little shaken up. She went on to tell us a story. But first, I tell mine.

As we were preparing to leave on our date, The Reverend and I were doing different things on the main floor when we heard a fierce grunting and groaning coming from Ninja Boy’s bedroom. I called out “What are you doing? Putting on really tight pants or something?” We’ve been through a tremendous growth spurt with all of them which would explain me asking him about tight pants. I didn’t get an answer but I was not alarmed by all the noises. Unusual sounds are just a part of our daily lives.

Ninja came to me with a huge smile on his face. “I can get IN the window but I can’t get out.”

Say what?

“What do you mean you can get in the window?” I asked, just a little alarmed at this point.

“I can’t get out of the window. But I can get in.” He replied like I was very slow. “I put the ladder on the window and I got in!” Huge smile.

“Which ladder?” Alarm is growing in my belly.

At this point, I go and investigate.

“The ladder from the trampoline.” The trampoline ladder is  small and he is not a huge 8 yr old. It is a main floor so it’s not very far from window to ground, relatively speaking, but for a small child it is a definite drop.

Sure enough, the ladder was under his window.

Grunts and groans are now fully explained.

He had to pull himself up and over the ledge a good bit and his feet would have dangled for a while. I’m certain that the neighbors would have probably been well entertained during this time had they the opportunity to look out of their windows.

After explaining that the trampoline ladder is for the trampoline and that he will not remove his screen ever again unless there is a fire he looked at me innocently. “But what if there IS a fire? Then I definitely have to remove that screen again. What IF?”

Sigh.

Later that evening, we walk in the door to find our precious friend, and babysitter, looking a little frazzled. Nothing abnormal about that, except that she hardly EVER gets frazzled,even with our little bunch.

She went on to tell me that earlier that evening she had gone in to check Ninja. He wasn’t in his room so she went to look for him. It is his routine to have his nightly excuse to have to use the washroom for a very extended length of time. Let’s just say that he’s a guy and it seems to come naturally. Even the reading material.

He wasn’t where she looked so she asked the older kids to look for him. Her alarm grew as they searched all over the house and called outside. She thought to herself that she had finally lost one of our kids. All these years with a clean record and she’d lost one. She is a very calm personality and it takes a bit to make her frantic but frantic she was. She was calling down the road and up the road and down the stairs. Ninja was no where.

A little while, and a few grey hairs later, Ninja appeared from seemingly nowhere.

A little freaked, our dear lady asked “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

Perplexed by her unnatural shade of panic, he replied “In the bathroom…downstairs. The toilet is plugged and I had to use the downstairs bathroom” (see my earlier posts on low flow toilet drama)

Child found, all is right in the world.

Her heart  stopped its rapid pace and returned to normal, after a while.

I hate to say it, but I laughed a lot. At least someone else lost my child and not me…this time.