jailbreak

Tonight my friend and I went down to the church for a quick meeting. Todd wasn't home so we left all 5 of our kids in the care of her husband. We were out for 15 minutes.

We came home to find the cops and a random guy blocking the driveway so I parked across the street. As we were heading in the cops followed and my friend asked if they needed anything.

It seems that a small child had been seen wandering the streets. Alone. It was dark. The random guy had seen the small child go into this house.

What the..??!!

Only slightly alarmed, we said "Oh, no, I don't think it was one of ours, we've been gone 5 seconds, they're being supervised by an adult...." We head inside calling for the children and the M.I.A. husband. Then we scoured the house counting heads. All 5 accounted for, each promising that they had not gone outside, nor seen anyone else go outside. Just as I picked Gabriel up and came out of the back room, the police were describing the child as wearing one piece jammies around 3 years old - they glanced at Gabriel wearing the footed jammies and knew he was the culprit. Pan over to a sheepish, embarrassed husband.

There really was nothing more to be done. The 2 Sherlock's had solved the mystery and were satisfied we mothers had not left our children alone. I felt obligated to add, "That's what happens when you put the guy in charge."

So, in putting the pieces together, it seems that Gabriel slipped out the front door (unlocked - that's our fault) completely unnoticed by 5 other people. He wandered down the middle of the road, looked around a bit - made it to the corner (which is not too far from a major busy street) - random guy noticed and called the police. Gabriel then turned around and headed back, chose the right house and slipped back in completely unnoticed by 5 people.

The bummer deal for friend's husband is that if the cops hadn't been called no one would have ever been the wiser to his debate watching neglect. I'm not upset with him, I've lost their kid before (that's another story).

It's easy to not freak out when you already know that everything turns out fine in the end. But I have spent the last hour going over "what could haves" in my mind.

I think that someone was looking out for our Gabriel. And I am grateful.