Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Runner


Well it finally happened; one of my children was brought home in a police car! And wearing a speedo, no less....a speedo that was too small!!

Jim and I began our lives as the parents of a child with special needs without a clue as to what that was going to mean for our lives. Like so many others before us, we have done the best we could from day and day and tried to put up safeguards as we've made mistakes and learned.

We've found Michael sitting in the kitchen covered from head to toe with white flour in a very white kitchen, empty bag in hand. Another time it was with an empty bag of powdered chocolate in a very brown kitchen. My friend, Kim, was with me and she quietly put her hand on my shoulder and said, "This will be funny one day."

We met most of our neighbors in Paris as each one of them found Michael in their house and brought him home....oops, talk about a "faux pas".

Through the years we've found him; on the roof of the house, sitting in the toilet splashing around like it was a wade pool, in a swimming pool during a lightening storm, hanging (literally hanging) outside of our 2nd floor window, with a flat razor blade in his mouth, well, you get the picture.

Michael is what the therpists call, a "runner". Given the chance he will head out the door and down the street without looking back. We've put deadbolts that lock with a key on every door in the house. Unfortunately I forgot to lock it when I got home on Monday night. Michael was in the room next to us and kept running in and out of our room, and then he was gone. By the time I called 911, the police had already been called by someone who found him wandering around the park (just 2 blocks from our house, but across a busy street).

So, up pulls a police car with my son in the backseat. He was actually enjoying the ride and didn't seem distressed at all to have been picked up by the police. That is, not until they opened the door and he saw me. Then he let out a groan that told us all that he was not happy to see me. He doesn't talk, but I can usually tell what he's trying to communicate. This groan was, "How do they always find HER?" The policemen were very gracious and kind, by the way.

Once we got him inside and got our heart rates down, I tried to explain to him that at 15 he probably shouldn't run around the neighborhood in a speedo. I'm not sure he gets it!

So what do you do but learn a lesson one more time, thank God for protecting him once again, and move on to the next thing!

Our precious boy keeps us on our toes, catches us off balance from time to time, and reminds us to roll with the punches!!

Hope you're week has been less eventful than mine!!