Middle son T has always been good at surprising people. Even before he could walk, he had this way of looking innocent and sweet, and yet when one of his older brothers would go by, he would, on occasion, reach out his chubby little hands, latch onto the waist of their pants, and drag them down so he could crawl all over them. I guess he has always been a little bit aggressive as well.
When he started escaping from his car seat as a young toddler, I used to joke that he would be an escape artist when he grew up. I know I could not have managed to slither my way out of a five point harness system the way he could. Even when we tightened the straps, he would just find a way to wriggle out of it. We eventually had to get a new seat for him that had a different kind of fastener over his chest, just to confuse him for a while and keep him safe when we were driving. We also used to have to duct tape the front of his diaper to keep him from taking it off all the time.
Once when I was at the store and my husband stayed home with the boys, T was looking for me. He asked where I was, and when D said I went to the store, T waited for an opportunity to escape and ran off down the street after me. He stopped at the first store he came to (luckily there is one just a few blocks away, and on the same side of the street) and proceeded to look for me. Since that wasn't the store I was at, he didn't find me, but a Police Officer from the station across the street was nice enough to drive him home (T was barely four years old at the time). Another time he escaped and went to the school to find his brothers. Someone saw him and told my husband (yes, T escapes from him often) and the search was on. He made it all the way to the school, and was wandering classrooms when he was found.
Of course I am not immune to T's capabilities myself. On one occasion I was upstairs putting laundry away, and the house got very quiet all of a sudden. I could tell he had left, so I booked it down the stairs and into the yard. I caught up with him a few houses down in nothing but a diaper and bare feet, running back towards home. I feel like I need to have some kind of alarm on the borders of our yard to alert us when he leaves its boudaries. (Actually, what I want is a fence with razor wire and a watchtower in our yard.)
He has gotten better about not leaving home. Of course he threatens to run away any time he gets into trouble, but I usually catch him out in the yard, and he hasn't left the yard in any running away attempts yet. He does routinely lose us in stores, which is why I don't like taking him shopping.
Yesterday was his crowning achievement though. The school had been warned many times of his propensity for escaping. For most of Kindergarten there was an Aide in the class who was there mostly to keep track of him, and to keep him focused on what he was supposed to be doing. This year for some reason they felt that he could do with only having Justina (the Aide-who also does a wonderful job with T) there for the morning. I think it has something to do with them wanting to spend their money on things like school buses and etc, than on having an Aide for a kid that really needs to have one with him all the time. (I plan to do a future post on IEP later where I will go into more detail about how the school gets paid double for kids with an IEP, but they don't want to spend that extra money on the actual kids it is supposed to be for.)
Wednesdays are early release days. Instead of getting out at 2:00 p.m. they are released a whopping 40 minutes early at 1:20. So at 1:00 p.m. I was sitting in the living room reading the latest ad from the local grocery store, when I heard a knock at the door. I thought, "Oh, the boys must be home"...but then I realized that they weren't supposed to even get released from school for another 20 minutes. I got up to answer the door, and the phone started to ring. I got to the door, and there was T, standing on the back porch in his P.E. shoes, and saying something about his teacher disappearing. I knew what the phone call probably was, so I answered it and it was the Assistant Principle saying that she saw T escape through the gate and head towards home. (We live right behind the school, and if the trees weren't so tall you could see our house from there easily.)
I got shoes on the little boys, and the four of us walked back to the school. As we were crossing the track to get back to the school, a P.E. teacher asked if that was T as they had been looking for him. Then she said how she and two other teachers were supposed to be keeping an eye on him. I guess I felt a small moment of pride that he had escaped from school while being watched by three teachers, from a schoolyard that is fenced except for a couple of entries, and all while wearing a bright orange shirt. Then I guess I felt a certain amount of annoyance that the school can't keep track of a kid that they know will do something like that if he gets a chance. Especially after I found out that he had partially escaped the day before (not off school grounds, just to his old classroom).
T had gotten confused when his class lined up to head back in from P.E. Actually, I think he just got distracted by something else (which he frequently does) and lost his class. When he couldn't find them, he checked the classroom (they had gone a different way, and weren't there yet) and then came home. He now knows to go to the office and ask for help if he gets lost from his class.
Maybe he should be a spy when he grows up. I certainly hope that his wearing a shirt the color of a prison jumpsuit is not some kind of foreshadowing of the future.
When he started escaping from his car seat as a young toddler, I used to joke that he would be an escape artist when he grew up. I know I could not have managed to slither my way out of a five point harness system the way he could. Even when we tightened the straps, he would just find a way to wriggle out of it. We eventually had to get a new seat for him that had a different kind of fastener over his chest, just to confuse him for a while and keep him safe when we were driving. We also used to have to duct tape the front of his diaper to keep him from taking it off all the time.
Once when I was at the store and my husband stayed home with the boys, T was looking for me. He asked where I was, and when D said I went to the store, T waited for an opportunity to escape and ran off down the street after me. He stopped at the first store he came to (luckily there is one just a few blocks away, and on the same side of the street) and proceeded to look for me. Since that wasn't the store I was at, he didn't find me, but a Police Officer from the station across the street was nice enough to drive him home (T was barely four years old at the time). Another time he escaped and went to the school to find his brothers. Someone saw him and told my husband (yes, T escapes from him often) and the search was on. He made it all the way to the school, and was wandering classrooms when he was found.
Of course I am not immune to T's capabilities myself. On one occasion I was upstairs putting laundry away, and the house got very quiet all of a sudden. I could tell he had left, so I booked it down the stairs and into the yard. I caught up with him a few houses down in nothing but a diaper and bare feet, running back towards home. I feel like I need to have some kind of alarm on the borders of our yard to alert us when he leaves its boudaries. (Actually, what I want is a fence with razor wire and a watchtower in our yard.)
He has gotten better about not leaving home. Of course he threatens to run away any time he gets into trouble, but I usually catch him out in the yard, and he hasn't left the yard in any running away attempts yet. He does routinely lose us in stores, which is why I don't like taking him shopping.
Yesterday was his crowning achievement though. The school had been warned many times of his propensity for escaping. For most of Kindergarten there was an Aide in the class who was there mostly to keep track of him, and to keep him focused on what he was supposed to be doing. This year for some reason they felt that he could do with only having Justina (the Aide-who also does a wonderful job with T) there for the morning. I think it has something to do with them wanting to spend their money on things like school buses and etc, than on having an Aide for a kid that really needs to have one with him all the time. (I plan to do a future post on IEP later where I will go into more detail about how the school gets paid double for kids with an IEP, but they don't want to spend that extra money on the actual kids it is supposed to be for.)
Wednesdays are early release days. Instead of getting out at 2:00 p.m. they are released a whopping 40 minutes early at 1:20. So at 1:00 p.m. I was sitting in the living room reading the latest ad from the local grocery store, when I heard a knock at the door. I thought, "Oh, the boys must be home"...but then I realized that they weren't supposed to even get released from school for another 20 minutes. I got up to answer the door, and the phone started to ring. I got to the door, and there was T, standing on the back porch in his P.E. shoes, and saying something about his teacher disappearing. I knew what the phone call probably was, so I answered it and it was the Assistant Principle saying that she saw T escape through the gate and head towards home. (We live right behind the school, and if the trees weren't so tall you could see our house from there easily.)
I got shoes on the little boys, and the four of us walked back to the school. As we were crossing the track to get back to the school, a P.E. teacher asked if that was T as they had been looking for him. Then she said how she and two other teachers were supposed to be keeping an eye on him. I guess I felt a small moment of pride that he had escaped from school while being watched by three teachers, from a schoolyard that is fenced except for a couple of entries, and all while wearing a bright orange shirt. Then I guess I felt a certain amount of annoyance that the school can't keep track of a kid that they know will do something like that if he gets a chance. Especially after I found out that he had partially escaped the day before (not off school grounds, just to his old classroom).
T had gotten confused when his class lined up to head back in from P.E. Actually, I think he just got distracted by something else (which he frequently does) and lost his class. When he couldn't find them, he checked the classroom (they had gone a different way, and weren't there yet) and then came home. He now knows to go to the office and ask for help if he gets lost from his class.
Maybe he should be a spy when he grows up. I certainly hope that his wearing a shirt the color of a prison jumpsuit is not some kind of foreshadowing of the future.
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