Speaking of accidents, we live in an upstairs unit. This summer, we were getting ready to go to the pool. I was outside with my daughter, getting ready to lock the door. She took a few steps backwards, thinking she was in my way. She started to fall down the stairs. I grabbed her by her ankle and she gave me her hand as I pulled her back up. We were both shaken up pretty badly. She ended up with just a few scratches on her elbow. There is no way that fall would have ended well. That was the scariest day of my life with her.... so far. I know how kids are and know there are more of these days ahead.
We often forget that when a missing child alert is put out that as a parent and a neighbor of the family next door or down the block, until the child is found dead or alive, we do get so paranoid that the next child to go missing will be ours.
How to explain to our children what has happend to their friends younger sibling. How to tell the kids what to say or not say to a classmate at school whose parents are in the news every day begging for the return of their baby.
How to explain that the kids freedom was now limited from no fault of their own. Why Mom was up at all hours checking on them or headed for the SPCA to get them a big dog, No longer able to walk a block away to a friends house alone, how to explain to kids why Mom now distrusted the mail man, meter readers or had the new big dog sleep in their rooms at night.
Kids have little thought about what they say, they just ask or say things they wonder about. My 5 year old girl at the time a friends father was carted off to the hospital after a heart attack asked her friend if her Daddy was going to die. Honest question but it so disturbed the daughter that she became hysterical and had to be sedated. Me, I did not handle this well at all, I jumped down the throat of my little girl for asking a normal question of a friend---
Out come was if my daughter saw something odd, she would not tell or say anything to us. Bad move for me, one I have regretted for years and years.
There is so much that goes on with a missing child, not just for the parents but for everyone that has any connection to the family. Everyone is under suspicion, friends neighbors, repairmen or any neighbor with more then a speeding ticket. People go wild with speculation on the family of a missing child, this goes on to regular friends of the parents who visit often.
Seems everyone WANTS to believe this was a random thing by an outsider, we cannot believe this has been done by anyone we know, or God forbid by any member of our family, our Church or the parents of the missing child.
Then all so often we find the killer is the child's own mother, HOW in Hell do we explain that to our kids??
Rant over for now.