Day 2.147: Hold on tight!

I was lone-guardian of the kids today. After breakfast, we had decided to go to a slightly-further-away playground and I was in the process of organising brushing of teeth and finding of shoes when one of Exile #3's classmates' mothers called to offer the chance for her to go and see a movie. She was very keen (to say the least) so we dropped her off. While there I was joking that now I needed to find a way to lose the other two. All that didn't seem funny three hours later when I left Exile #4 and E5N1 out the front of the house for about a minute and returned to find no sign of them.

I'm not one to panic in these situations - I knew they couldn't be far, so I checked the front yard where they had been, the garage, the house, the back yard. OK - by this time I was starting to be a bit concerned. I checked the yard again, then went next door to ask if our next door neighbour had seen them. He went to the next house while I went back to check the house again. Still no sign. I checked the car again, the house - with much shouting and heart-pounding. By this time five neighbours from three different households were out searching. Finally I opened the boot (trunk) of the van to find E5N1 smiling at me. They had not just got in and closed the doors, but had lain down behind the middle seats so that I failed to see them when I opened the side door to look for them.

I called off the search with relief and many thanks to the neighbours. Now I know that you'd have to have pretty rotten neighbours for them not to join a search for two missing children, but we really have very good ones.

In between 'losing' Exile #3 and losing the others, the three of us had a very nice time at the park. Exile #2 is now home and all the kids are safely sleeping in their own beds.