So here during a week when I have actually had snippits of time and subjects to actually write about, our internet has been on the fritz again. They are supposed to be paying our house a visit today between the hours of 8-10 and I am just about willing to bet that they will show up promptly at 10:15 and then end up staying for the better part of the morning. I am also willing to bet that somehow, all their previous service records from our house will have disappeared and even though Brandon has filled out a lengthy form explaining, with bullet points, what our issues are, they will not know why they are even here. Also, as you can tell, the internet is working just fine at the moment.
Internet, you are a hard one to love. I feel like our relationship is extremely one-sided and really not very good for me. But I can’t leave you.
So before I share a little story about a rather big event this past weekend, I wanted to share a few photos from the weekend before that, when we were on our little trip to the grandparents house. After church, I like to take a picture or two of the kiddos still dressed up and with Mumsey and Poppy. Mainly, I do this because I remember as a child whenever I happened to go to my grandparents house after church and was still dressed properly and grandma’s hair was all done up , my mom would take a picture. Everyone wants photos of them to look back on, and having them taken when you feel presentable is always a plus.
So my children did some posing
Lila struts and poses all the time. You put her shoes on and she has to put on a little show before actually walking out of the room.
Nice Ladies
I like Reese’s go-to pose a lot
I probably should have stopped with their silly fireplace posing because Lila was very over the moment when it finally came time to take the real thing.
A smile would have been nice Lila
Starting to melt
This is just a sweet little moment I had to capture
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So on to the events of this past weekend.
Mattie is in a little club at church called Adventurers. They meet a couple of times of week and work on earning award badges for things like “Furry Friends” (which had to do with keeping a pet and being a friend to animals) “First Aid” (I think you can figure that one out) and last night, they learned about birds. They also work on lessons that teach them how to be a little light for Jesus in the community around them, whether that be home, school, their city. Anyway, you get the point. We like adventurers and not just the kids, but we the parents that attend the meetings faithfully, have become a bit of a family ourselves.
So Sabbath afternoon, following church, we met with our club to have our annual Spring Picnic. We had a little pavilion near a small fishing lake, that none of us even knew existed at this particular park before, and had just finished a lovely lunch. The kids were playing down near the water, throwing things in and making excessive noise which was probably driving the poor fishermen, who up to this point had been enjoying an undiscovered lake, to the point of madness. And we grown-ups were enjoying some good ol’ fashioned grownup chatting time. All of us women that happened to be there are stay at home moms, so getting to talk to more than one grown up was just heavenly.
The dads were starting to play a little frisbee and we were settling into a nice little afternoon, when 4 of the little boys came huffing and puffing up to us, shouting, “They’ve run away into the woods and they won’t come back!”
Turns out, the they was my Mattie, her little friend and another much younger little guy.
I immediately looked at Brandon and telepathically, told him that this was his mission. Plus, Lila hadn’t gone “potty” since church and I was afraid at any moment she was going to spill over. So I sent the dad, fully faithful that he would be back in less than 10 minutes with a giggling group of children and that would be that. Instead, he returned about 15-20 minutes later with a group of solemn children, plus two more than he found standing lost in the woods (who also happened to belong to us.) Thankfully, these two little ones that he found had used their little brains and when they discovered that they were lost, they just stayed completely still and waited, not wandering any further into the maze.
Brandon is typically a laid back kind of guy. I will admit, I am probably a wee bit more of the high-strung one in our relationship. I may have cried wolf a few times, and I am pretty positive that on more than one occasion, the sky has definitely been falling. Brandon has more of a “let’s wait it out and see” sort of motto. So when he came back and just stated simply, “I can’t find them anywhere.” There was a quiet panic that spread instantly through our little family. But we were calm, almost as though we had practiced this before. Brandon and some of the boys headed back into the woods in one direction and the other mama took the other boys and headed another way. The little guy – his mama headed down a trail that runs around the lake. And I sat down on the ground with the littles left behind and we picked the first few wildflowers that were starting to sprout. Manning the post and trying not to think about my little tiny girl lost in the woods.
Shelby Farms is the largest urban park in the United States, beating out Central Park in New York City. That’s always a nice little nugget to know when your child unaccounted for.
There is a great playground there at Shelby Farms, and friend Sara decided to get in her van and head over there to see if maybe they had made their way over there. And after about 5 minutes of staring off into space, her husband Robert also headed into the woods. He later told us that it was the thoughts of not, where would they be found, but rather what if someone else found them and he couldn’t handle that.
Sitting there on a little rolling hill, nervously checking my phone every little bit to see what the searchers were reporting, I waited. Brandon and his crew had reached a whole other lake and found no trace of the girls and little guy. We had conceded to call in the rangers and have them start a search. And then my phone rang.
It was Sara and all she said was, “I have them.”
As you get to the playground there is a Y in the road. going towards the right takes you to the playground, going to the left takes you to a road that you aren’t supposed to drive down and then heads into the woods it seems. Sara went to the left and just happened to see the bright red hoodie one of the girls was wearing. She got out of her car and called to them, which resulted in them all 3 falling to the ground on their bellies. Why they did that, I don’t think they even know, but then Sara called out those 3 beautiful word – “Mattie Belle Baughman” with a tone only a mother can holler and she said that girl sprang up and ran to her like her pants were on fire.
Upon arrival back to our little camp, the girls and boy were all smiles and excited. But as soon as the car door opened, as with every stride that she grew closer to where I was sitting on the ground, that smile disappeared and by the time she reached me and tumbled into my lap, she was full on sobbing.
Trying to be strong while still in front of her friends, but then losing it.
The girls spent the rest of our “picnic” in the own families vehicles. Locked in car jail to pay their penance until it was time to go home. Driving home, Mattie got the lecture of her life. I think there for a minute, she probably thought it would be better to be tied up and tossed in some strangers trunk then to be stuck in the back seat listening to her mom.
I had to get a little graphic with her, more so than I was really ready to about just what could have happened to her. I think she finally realized that this was way bigger and way more serious than just a little jaunt off into the woods, but still, that night when she was tucked into bed and we were saying prayers, her final words were, “A lot of bad things could have happened, but they didn’t.”
As much as I don’t wish bad things to happen to my children and I’m not really in favor of “scaring them straight.” Sometimes you wish that there was some way to help them to really “see” just what they had barely dodged. Just how close they were to danger and how grateful they should be that it didn’t go that way. I know that Mattie was scared being lost in the woods, but even in her wildest imagination she would never come up with the same fears that we as the adults had. If there was some way to hire a harmless kidnapper that would put a little fear in the kiddos, but not scar them for life. I don’t know if that is possible though.
Thankfully, our little group was safe and sound, well, except Brandon, he stepped on a 3 inch thorn that went right through his shoe. But that has proved to be a great guilt trip for Mattie…..”Yeah, poor daddy has to soak his foot every night to keep it from getting infected and look at that hole!” I think the kiddos learned a far greater lesson than any scavenger hunt would have taught them and Mattie now knows that if she ventures off again, I will be wearing her strapped to my body until she is at least 12.
Mama Tried 