Thursday, June 20, 2013

Runaway Girl

It took me a while to be able to write about this, I needed some time to digest the initial shock. Last weekend, Lily ran away. Again. Well, she didn’t technically “run away” in the troubled teenager way, she took off to do her own thing. Her explanation from last Sunday? – I just wanted to go and visit the building site up where the new house is going to be built”. Said building site is about 1.5 miles from our current house, and she would have to cross a busy road a few times. She was playing outside when she announced: I’m going now. I said “ok”, thinking she would go until the end of the street and then turn back. I circled around to catch her on the other side. The only thing: she wasn’t there. I kept looking, but no Lily anywhere. I was scared she would have crossed the busy road and headed off to the playground. At that point, my neighbor also started to look for her. When she was not at the playground, I started to panic, wondering when it was time to call the cops on a missing 5-year old, when I saw my neighbor walking towards me with Lily on his hand. I have rarely been this relieved, giving her speeches on not just walking away, staying away from the busy streets, etc. Obviously, he had found her at the traffic light, waiting for the green light to cross the street. Fortunately, we have taught her well on how to participate in traffic properly!

This episode has unfortunately not been the first time she had run away. Just a few weeks back, while I was on an after-dinner walk with Violet (Lily had decided to stay back and read a magazine), she left the house without the hubby noticing to look for me. When I returned with Violet from our walk, our neighbor was talking to a woman I didn’t know, informing me that the lady had just brought back Lily, who was standing somewhere in the neighborhood, crying when she could neither find me nor the way back to our house. I made her promise never to leave the house without permission again.

Even before that incidence, there were two episodes of her running away. Once, when she was about 18 months old, she left the apartment without Richard noticing. I was at a neighbor’s house, chatting, when I suddenly saw the hubby walking outside. I asked him what was up and he said that Lily had taken off. After a panicked search we found her at yet another neighbor’s porch, playing with the toys there. The next time, she left my grandmother’s house just a few days after our move there. I thought she was with Richard, he thought she was with me (it was a huge house). In fact, she had left through the back door, in her jammies and without shoes, walking out onto yet another busy street. A driver stopped and lead her off the street, ringing on our door just to check if she lived there. I tell you, heart-attack worthy! 

I am glad that Lily doesn’t run off because she’s unhappy at home; she does it because she wants to be independent. She sees that if adults want to go somewhere, they just go (even though this is not completely right, the hubby and I usually let each other know where we go). And that’s what she does. That’s what she has done a total of 4 times now since she’s been 18 months old. And it scares me. I refuse to lock the door of our apartment. We’ve done it for a while after the last time she took off, but stopped again. I don’t like locked doors, and we live in a very secure neighborhood, so it’s not necessary. I don’t want the girls to get the feeling being locked in. We want to foster independence, but Lily takes it a step too far. This little 5-year old has the self-confidence of a big one, which I love on the one hand; on the other hand, it gets us all in situations like that. She does not know enough of the world to be safe. And we don’t want to scare her, if she would even understand the potential dangers out there. Again, we live in a very safe environment, but you never know who might pass through and take advantage of the opportunity. After last Sunday, we tried to tell her that there are bad people out there, who might hurt her, or take her away from us, and then we would not have a Lily any more, which would be beyond sad to all of us. She just held my hand, hugged me and told me it was ok and that she would always come home to me again. I love her for her optimism, but need to find a way to make her realize what kind of dangers are out there without taking this optimism from her. I need to make her realize that she is not a grown-up without smothering her inherent independence; I have experienced myself that this will only drive her away from us. Any advice that does not involve locked doors is welcome! 

My little whirl wind girl
 

10 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness I can only imagine how scary that would be. My sister walked around the block when she was 2 and my mom flipped.

    So glad everything worked out. xoxo

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    1. It was scary! Especially going from: "she's just playing" to "where the heck did she go now??" to "oh my goodness, I need to call the cops, where's my baby???" to *hug, stronger hugs, almost squeezing the air out of her hugs". Thanks for your support, Pinky!

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  2. I am so happy to hear she is safe, I can only imagine the panic and fear you must have felt.

    June is Hydranencephaly awareness month - help spread the word
    http://mommysrambles.blogspot.com/2013/06/i-love-someone-with-hydranencephaly.html

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    1. Thanks for letting me know, Kimbra! It was just crazy going from this "I'm going to sneak around the other way and maybe scare her" to "I need to call the cops, oh my goodness". I was so releaved when I saw her walking up with my neighbor, I even couldn't be mad at her!

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  3. I can't begin to imagine the panic you felt, as well as the fear. I get a little crazy when our 2yo wanders away in a store. They want so much to be independent, but gah! it's frightening.

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    1. Oh, that's how it begins! The weird thing is how different our two girls are. While Lily can't grow up and have all her independence fast enough, Violet won't leave my side and will even follow me to the bathroom, which drives me just as nuts. But this one was definitely up there with the the most scariest moments I've had with her, besides almost jumping out the window and nearly dying from a stomach bug. She's going to cause me having a heart attack one day ;-)

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  4. Ah love, this just about stills my heart. I have moments of almost paralyzation when thoughts of "what could happen" flood in. *sigh* While my intellectual mind argues with my frightened one, I cannot help but wonder if you couldn't have a braclet made with a gps? lol Oh my word, I'm becoming my paranoid father....

    In an insane world, I am so glad that every time has been so easily resolved! I have no idea what I would do. But you stir my mind to think on this... xo

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    1. Don't thinkon it, Chantel. If I reveled in all the what-ifs, I went beser. Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you had a great time at the camping trip!

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  5. Wow, holy crap that is scary. I would be panicking like crazy. I'm a little torn, if having to be honest. I can understand the desire to foster independence and not make children feel locked in, but after the first escape from the house I'd be locking that up stat haha.

    I learned to lock the door whenever I came home, but I can't recall where from. When living in the country we always left the door unlocked. Hmmm.

    Hopefully telling her to always let you know where/when she is leaving works. Having experienced a few scares, though, I would definitely be telling her upon her announcements that it isn't the best time for her to venture out >.<

    I'm so glad each instance has been resolved with no issue. I'd be freaking out lol

    Jak at The Cryton Chronicles & Dreams in the Shade of Ink

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    1. It was crazy, and scary, but I just cannot bring it over me to lock her up; I guess I cannot stand to lock the place up myself. We live in a very safe neighborhood, and Lily is very reliable in traffic. I was held on a very short leash by my mom, basically until I got married and ran away half-way around the world. Lily is so much like me and she needs her freedom and independence, and while she may scare the living bejeesus out of us every once in a while, I simply cannot bring it over myself to stifle this wonderful free-spirit. We talk to her and try to explain the possbile dangers of her behavior. We know she's responsible, but needs to understand that she's only five and cannot quite yet take on the world.

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