He Might Be Bored but He's Not Boring.

So Friday I had something to do right after school and I told the kids I'd pick them up. "Do not ride the bus," I said. E and I ran some errands and then went over to the school to do the pick-up thing. Ty got in the car and shortly after that G ran over and jumped in. But no S3. The busses all pulled away and still no S3. I really thought maybe he was still in the building so I had Ty jump out and go ask the principal if he'd seen S3 and he said no.

I had worked Thursday into Friday and the kids go to school before I get home from work so I started thinking maybe Steve had given him permission to go home with his friend but of course there's very little signal out at the school and when I did manage to get a call through, Steve was in meetings as usual. Finally around 3:30 I started to get so worried I called my dad and asked him to go get Steve out of the meeting. For the next ten minutes Steve tried to call my cell but since there's very little signal, my phone never rang. Really I didn't believe he'd gone with his friend because they'd have had to walk past my car and I would have seen him.

My brain was going to the worst case scenario, you know? I thought about how lousy the security is at that school and how easily he could have been taken. And then I couldn't remember if I'd ever filled out the emergency contact form they've been after me to do since September. I had slept that morning; if he'd been taken to the hospital and the phone rang I might not have heard it. I was in full panic mode at that point so I wasn't thinking that I'd spoken to the principal and if he'd been taken to the hospital surely the principal would have said something at that point.

Finally I decided to try to call Steve again and this time we managed to connect. He told me S3 didn't have permission to go home with his friend but before I started calling the police I should check and see if he got on the bus. OMGosh I never even thought about that possibility. Luckily for me we had a lot of trouble with the bus years ago when S3 first started going to the private school so I've had the head bus guy's phone number stored on my cell phone ever since and I called him. He radioed the bus and sure enough that's where my child had gotten himself.

I bawled. I mean I sobbed and boo-hoo'd the whole way home. I'm not sure how we got home in one piece. Finally I settled down about a block from the house and when we pulled up, S3 opened the door and started to apologize (thinking that he was going to be in some serious trouble) and I just burst into tears again. Poor kid, I must have squeezed the life out of him all the while dripping tears everywhere.

Honestly, I didn't even realize I was that upset until I knew he was safe. Sheesh.