Freak out

I meant to blog about this forever ago, and I'm just now getting to it. Okay, so here's a story of how Josephine aged me about 10 years last month. Here's the scenario: Maria is sitting on the stairs, being punished for I can't remember what now. Josephine is downstairs chillin' on the couch reading books. I go outside for a sec to look at some paint samples in the sunlight (they look different in actual light than they do inside). I accidentally drop one of them and it falls in the crack between the boards of our deck - shoot. I lean back inside, say "Josephine, I'll be right back", and head outside to crawl under the deck to get the color card out. I'm outside for maybe 60 seconds. I come back inside and hear the timer go off - time for me to go talk to Maria and see if she's ready to get up and be done with her punishment. I go upstairs, have "the talk" with her about obedience and send her off to play.

She goes outside in the backyard and comes back about five minutes later and starts walking around the house. She comes into the kitchen (where I'm starting dinner) and asks: "Mom, where's Josephine?" I pause - "Um, she's not outside with you?" "No, Mom, and she's not inside, either - I just looked" Yeah, well Maria is not always the greatest at finding things so I say "well, go look again". She does, and comes back saying that Josephine is nowhere in the house. So I go look myself. I look all over the second floor, then down through the first floor, then down to the basement. No Josephine. So I go outside. I look in the backyard, I look in the front yard, in the driveway - no Josephine. Now, I don't remember her going outside. The last time I saw her she was on the couch reading while I went outside for literally ONE minute. "This is weird, I think to myself", "but don't panic, you don't want to freak Maria out" So I search the house again - the closets, the bathtub (just in case she's doing a hide-n-seek thing), under the beds - everywhere I can think of, all the while calling out "Josephine, you need to come out now, this isn't funny. If you don't come out RIGHT NOW you are going to be in HUGE trouble!" Now I know my daughter - if she had heard that, she would have come running RIGHT out, scared to be in any trouble. I go outside and start yelling her name - no answer. I start walking up and down our block - no Josephine. She's not in the house, she's not outside. Okay, so now, I start freaking out...

I see one of our neighbors and ask her, but no, she hasn't seen Josephine, and she's been outside for the last half hour. "Somebodys' taken her!!", I start thinking, "she came outside for ONE second when I didn't notice and in that very moment, some creep snatched her!! How is that POSSIBLE?!!! What are the odds?!!" But there is no other explanation in my mind. I search the house again, knowing full well that she is not there - I've already searched it twice!! I start pacing and hyperventilating - do I call Lou? Do I call the police? "Oh my gosh, Lou will never forgive me. She'll be one of the missing children who never shows up and, Lou will divorce me and my life will fall apart and I'll never forgive myself, either!!" My mind is going crazy right about now, as you can see.

So, I go upstairs and get the phone - I have to call the police. My child is missing. I start to feel sick. I head towards our love seat to sit down while I dial and it's covered in the girls playclothes. And that's when I see it - two little sets of toes clad in lime green sandals poking out from under the mound of dress-up dresses. Josephine's toes. I look at the other end of the couch, and sure enough, there are two eyes - just eyes - showing out from under a big skirt. Josephine in on the couch, buried in play clothes, fast asleep. All that was showing were her closed eyes and little toes - I walked past her at least a half a dozen times and didn't even see her. I sat down on the opposite couch and start crying with relief. Words cannot even explain how relieved I was. And then I think "holy crap I think that stress-out just aged me about ten years..."

Let me tell you - nothing sends fear shivering down your spine like a missing child - and nothing sends more relief than finding them, safe and sound...