He looks so innocent and charming . . .
Are you checking to see if you gave yourself a heart attack like you did to us?
Avery is home with me this week, and he has been a handful! On Tuesday, he decided to go to the playground, but he didn't invite a parent! In his pajamas and bare feet, he unlocked the deadbolt, walked down the hallway, took the elevator downstairs, walked through the garage, walked through the door which was propped open, walked through the parking lot, walked up the stairs, walked through the other parking lot, walked up more stairs to the preschool's playground! I was in the shower, and as soon as I realized that Avery was gone, I called Carolyn who in turn called campus security and facilities, and we had approximately 40 people looking everywhere for him within 5 minutes. I then called the police and in the meantime, I ran over to the preschool just in case he was there, and someone said "are you Avery's mom?" A girl working there who is a SLC student had recognized him and they waited for us with him.
I couldn't believe that Avery went there all by himself! And he wasn't hurt at all, which is of course the most important thing. Of course looking for him was the scariest thing in the world, and during the 20-30 minutes or so where we didn't know where he was, all we could think about was kidnapping, getting hit by cars, etc.
The police were kind of mean (they were suspicious because Avery was pretty pathetic looking, in his pajamas, bare feet, and covered head to toe in sand and dirt). One cop had to come and look inside our refrigerator and see Avery's room, and he said that he knew we were fine but that his boss was making him contact Child Protection Services. So we are now under investigation. A social worker has come to our apartment twice so far, and she said she would have to talk to Belen and our pediatrician, which is embarrassing. She more or less told us that the charges would be dropped, but of course she can't promise anything. She did say that we would get a letter in the mail stating that we are being accused of child negligence, which Carolyn thinks we should keep in the baby book to show Avery when he is older.
Ash, the SLC locksmith, came to our apartment three times this week: the first two times were to install new locks high up on our front door (the social worker said the first one wasn't high enough, so he came back to put a chain lock really really high up) and then the third time was this morning when Avery locked himself into the bathroom. I hadn't even ever realized that our bathroom doors have locks on them! Avery didn't cry, he just kept struggling to open the door and said "Uh oh! Stuck!" a lot. Poor Ash, I think he thought that Avery was in the bathtub or something because he ran over as fast as he could without even picking up his tools first. He said that his wife wants to have kids, but after this week he's not sure he can handle it. He was joking (sort of). We bought a fancy tray of cookies and brownies and brought it over to the Facilities/Security offices to say Thank You (with Avery). Everyone thinks Avery is so smart for going to the playground by himself!
We have realized a few things this week. First of all, we do not pay Belen enough. We are all ready for Avery to go back to daycare (case in point: we drove by the street where Avery's daycare is, and when we drove past it, Avery started sobbing because (we think) he thought we were going to his school). Second of all, kids keep you young and make you old all at once.
