October 2007 Archives
Oy. At a quarter to five yesterday I got a call from Carol, on the edge of hysteria, saying Leighton had gone missing on the way home from school while riding his bike. So, heart in throat I jumped on my bike and headed homeward. I went up the alley that we often take to their school, and noticed a police cruiser stopped and asking at a playground if they'd seen a 5 year old boy alone on his bike. At that point I also spotted our sitter and Campbell searching frantically. Every parent's worst nightmare, and I'm living it.
Here's what happened:
Our sitter picked up the boys at school, and they took their usual route home, which involves a shortcut through an alley. Campbell and Leighton often ride ahead, according to the sitter, but always stop at a certain point. Cut to our house: Carol is standing outside with a neighbour when Campbell rides up on his bike alone. She asks where the sitter is. Campbell says, Right behind me. But of course, he's way ahead, and after a few minutes Carol walks down to the corner only to see the sitter just arriving. Leighton is not with her, so she asks where he is. "With Campbell" is the reply. "No, he's NOT!" is the response to that. So, somewhere in the gap between Campbell and the sitter, Leighton has gone missing. Carol starts out on her bike, and phones me. I tell her to phone the police, who tell her to wait at the corner and don't move.
Meanwhile, as I'm looking, our neighbour heads out to search too, and finds Leighton being led back to our house by a woman, who found him lost and quite upset at the corner of College and Beatrice streets. Because he had our home phone number on his backpack, she phoned that number, but of course we were out looking. After awhile, she thought to ask Leighton if he knew his address, which he did, and off they went towards our place. He called Carol's cell, who called mine. We all ended up converging on the corner of Montrose and Crawford, white as sheets and pretty teary.
It turns out what happened is that when he and Campbell rode ahead, Leighton got his pants caught in his chain, and had to stop. But he was so far ahead of the sitter than he couldn't see her, or Campbell (who had kept going), and started to panic. So he went down to College St to try and find them. That's where he met the nice woman, who spotted him looking upset and clearly lost by a fruit stand there. By the time our sitter went by his original stopping spot he was gone, and she assumed he was still with Campbell. Thus, it was quite awhile before anyone knew he was missing.
Lessons learned (aside from setting ground rules with sitters more clearly): always have a home AND cell number on your childrens' stuff; drum their address into their heads until they can repeat it like robots in any situation. Same with phone # (which I'm not sure he'd be able to remember right away).
On Saturday, we are having a meeting with the boys and our sitter, and setting out clear ground rules for behaviour. The boys adore this sitter, but they will be told that they will no longer be able to be picked up by her is they aren't staying within sight. It sounds simple, but it's easy over time to get lax about this stuff.
Anyway, it all worked out. Thank God, or Gods, or whatever weird universal system you believe in.
Here's what happened:
Our sitter picked up the boys at school, and they took their usual route home, which involves a shortcut through an alley. Campbell and Leighton often ride ahead, according to the sitter, but always stop at a certain point. Cut to our house: Carol is standing outside with a neighbour when Campbell rides up on his bike alone. She asks where the sitter is. Campbell says, Right behind me. But of course, he's way ahead, and after a few minutes Carol walks down to the corner only to see the sitter just arriving. Leighton is not with her, so she asks where he is. "With Campbell" is the reply. "No, he's NOT!" is the response to that. So, somewhere in the gap between Campbell and the sitter, Leighton has gone missing. Carol starts out on her bike, and phones me. I tell her to phone the police, who tell her to wait at the corner and don't move.
Meanwhile, as I'm looking, our neighbour heads out to search too, and finds Leighton being led back to our house by a woman, who found him lost and quite upset at the corner of College and Beatrice streets. Because he had our home phone number on his backpack, she phoned that number, but of course we were out looking. After awhile, she thought to ask Leighton if he knew his address, which he did, and off they went towards our place. He called Carol's cell, who called mine. We all ended up converging on the corner of Montrose and Crawford, white as sheets and pretty teary.
It turns out what happened is that when he and Campbell rode ahead, Leighton got his pants caught in his chain, and had to stop. But he was so far ahead of the sitter than he couldn't see her, or Campbell (who had kept going), and started to panic. So he went down to College St to try and find them. That's where he met the nice woman, who spotted him looking upset and clearly lost by a fruit stand there. By the time our sitter went by his original stopping spot he was gone, and she assumed he was still with Campbell. Thus, it was quite awhile before anyone knew he was missing.
Lessons learned (aside from setting ground rules with sitters more clearly): always have a home AND cell number on your childrens' stuff; drum their address into their heads until they can repeat it like robots in any situation. Same with phone # (which I'm not sure he'd be able to remember right away).
On Saturday, we are having a meeting with the boys and our sitter, and setting out clear ground rules for behaviour. The boys adore this sitter, but they will be told that they will no longer be able to be picked up by her is they aren't staying within sight. It sounds simple, but it's easy over time to get lax about this stuff.
Anyway, it all worked out. Thank God, or Gods, or whatever weird universal system you believe in.
So it's not really news in the proverbial sense. But last weekend at the park, Kola got into a fight with some dog over a ball -- why can't we all just get along? -- and as I reached for her collar to pull her off, my hand slipped and got slashed by sharp doggy teeth. Luckily, it wasn't a full bite, but my hand was a mess. A big gash in my thumb, a really painful puncture wound on my knuckle, some other minor scratches, and a lot of blood. Oy. So off to the hospital I went for tetanus shots and an opinion on whether or not I needed stitches (as it turns out I didn't). My hand was just throbbing, and even the very lovely Nurse Kate bending over me to put on the bandages didn't help. Then it was: tetanus shot; IV antibiotic drip; prescription for a week's worth of antibiotics.
Apparently the knuckle wound is the more serious as if it became infected then it could damage the ligaments etc and consequently the joint. The doctor was quite concerned about that. Oy. Once again I reflect on the miracle of antibiotics and how many people must have died from relatively minor wounds back in the day. That said, it's been a week now, and healing is going very slowly. Yet another reminder of age.
Apparently the knuckle wound is the more serious as if it became infected then it could damage the ligaments etc and consequently the joint. The doctor was quite concerned about that. Oy. Once again I reflect on the miracle of antibiotics and how many people must have died from relatively minor wounds back in the day. That said, it's been a week now, and healing is going very slowly. Yet another reminder of age.
... that I would know there is no such thing as a "small reno" in an old house. We decided, after nearly 10 years of living in our current place, that it was time to fix up the tiny bathroom downstairs (the "airline bathroom" as it is known, which gives you a sense of its size). Carol had painted it, I had bought a new faucet, and all I needed to do for the floor was pop off the marble tiles, and lay down some new tile. It's only 15 square feet, how hard can it be?
The first clue to how out of practice I am in this area is the use of any phrase that begins with "All I [need] to do is..."
It turns out that the marble tile was not affixed to the original floor, nor even a subfloor. No, it had been attached -- melded -- onto poured concrete with rebar webbing in it. The job went from hammer and chisel to sledge and crowbar pretty quickly. So now I have a tiny empty bathroom room under the stairs with uneven planked floorboards, and a sore back. This could take awhile...
The first clue to how out of practice I am in this area is the use of any phrase that begins with "All I [need] to do is..."
It turns out that the marble tile was not affixed to the original floor, nor even a subfloor. No, it had been attached -- melded -- onto poured concrete with rebar webbing in it. The job went from hammer and chisel to sledge and crowbar pretty quickly. So now I have a tiny empty bathroom room under the stairs with uneven planked floorboards, and a sore back. This could take awhile...
