Losing (and Finding) Simone

[pantryslut]

I lost Simone at Fairyland on Wednesday.

I'd gone down with marialuminous, who is shortly leaving Oakland and wanted to see this famous children's landmark before she left. We split the kid-minding between us: I accompanied April while she walked around with Simone. We'd rendezvous at set times and places and check in, then run off again.

This worked well all the way through eating lunch, riding the carousel, riding the train, climbing the pirate rigging, etc. -- until naptime approached and apparently Simone started to get tired of Maria's company. We met up by the mini-church (yes, Fairyland has a mini-church. This line is for all you athiests: why shouldn't it? It's got all the other fairy tales!). The mini-church has a side door that you can close. Simone took great glee in running through the side door and slamming it in our face.

Then she apparently took great glee in running off and losing us.

But full credit to Shayna, who's apparently taught our girls what to do when they're lost: find an adult, tell them your name and that you're lost, and they'll help you. And full credit, too, to the Fairyland staff, who are obviously well-versed at this sort of thing.

The result being: it seems Simone turned herself in. She was waiting by the front with the Fairyland personnel when Maria went to report a missing child. Crisis averted.

(I have a suspicion she went straight to the carousel, whose operator had seen her with her adults earlier and knew who she was supposed to be with. I bet the operator asked her where her adults were and she said "I don't know...")

We went home shortly after that.

As I've been saying, if I had to lose a kid, I'm glad it happened at Fairyland. It's enclosed and it's well-staffed with folks armed with walkie-talkies who are both trained and experienced with this sort of thing.

The rest of the week was fun but thankfully less exciting. We went splashing at Splash Pad Park yesterday, right down the hill, and my girls came home smelling like chlorine. The park was strangely deserted. It's kind of eerie when you're used to seeing it in the midst of the farmer's market bustle. I expected at least a few lunchtime picknickers, but not so much.

And we had a very successful playdate on Monday with a visting LJer that culminated with the best peanut butter and apricot jam sandwiches ever, plus as much fresh cherries as everyone could eat.

And tomorrow, the plan is that I get a break and the children get to feed animals at Little Farm.

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaaaah. Seems to be a parental rite of passage. My mom never tires of telling the story of how she lost my brother at the mall one time and was trying to figure out where she could go because she could not face going home and telling my dad that she lost his kid. (He also found adults who found her, as he had been trained to do!)

Yay less exciting rest of week.

[garnetlocks.livejournal.com]

My mom taught my brother and me when we were old enough to understand that if we heard a certain whistle she made (two short tones, followed by another, longer tone that glissandoed down a half-step), it meant she was looking for us, and we should find her asap by using the whistle to home in. When we learned to whistle (probably about six or seven), we could call back and forth in stores and crowds.

This might not be much help now, but it's something to think about as the girls get older. A good whistle can be heard from a long ways off and cut through the din of a small crowd or department store. My mom says it kept her mother (my grandmother) from losing her four kids on a daily basis.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

My mother also had a distinctive whistle. It worked very well, even for highly distractable kids with hearing impairments, such as me.

I do remember one time when I got lost, and I guess we must have wandered far enough apart that I couldn't hear her whistle anymore. That was in a department store, and I was sitting inside of a round rack of clothing because it looked really cool from inside there, like a cozy little cave of clothes. Eventually I did hear my name be called over the store loudspeaker, and I came out, very much surprised to find my mother scared and angry. After that, I learned that if I felt the urge to go hide in some cozy and comforting space, I needed to tell her first. Reporting my plans worked out well, because I always did have a hard time avoiding the temptation to go hide. I was willing to hide only in approved locations nearby, but I did really want to hide. I think I was easily overwhelmed by many places, and hiding was a way to feel safer.

[marialuminous.livejournal.com]

Also, I mentioned that story because I have been noticing some similarities between April and myself, especially the distractability and tendency to get easily overwhelmed and over stimulated. I hope that April doesn't take up hiding as a habit, but in case she does, it might help to know that establishing rules and boundaries about acceptable hiding worked far better for me than trying to quit hiding all together.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

I think I taught Maggy when she was about 3 how to find an adult and ask for help if I got lost. And then I'd deliberately get lost and watch her to see what she did.

Of course, then it became great fun and I couldn't turn around in a store without her deciding I was lost and having me paged.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

*phew*