But Then Things Got Weird...

Okay. So. We had a great party on Saturday, and then we lazed around the house all day Sunday, and before I knew it, it was Monday morning. Turtle woke up at 7:40 and we played our little "time to wake up" game. (The rules of the game vary, but basically it entails Turtle handing me all of his stuffed animals and his pillow and then jumping up and down on his bed, while I try to convince him that it would be a really good idea if I could change his diaper.) I shuffled him out to the living room and picked up the phone so I could call McMama. The conversation was just starting to get animated when the doorbell rang. It was 8:00 in the morning. The last time the doorbell rang that early in the morning, it was the Peruvian exchange student trying to sell me educational materials for my kid...and even HE didn't ring the doorbell THAT early...he at least waited an extra half hour and rang the doorbell at 8:30. I bitched to McMama about who in the HELL thinks it's a good idea to ring the doorbell at 8:00 in the morning, a sentiment with which McMama heartily agreed. But I told her to hang on while I peered through the peephole. "It's a cop," I said. The phone went eerily quiet as both McMama and I had the same thought, "What happened to Oscar?"

I quickly opened the door, with McMama still on the phone so she could find out immediately if she needed to fly out here to be with her son. Luckily, we soon discovered the reason for the officer's visit had nothing to do with Oscar. In fact, a 1-2 year old girl was found wandering the neighborhood, sans supervision, and they were going door to door to see if they could figure out where she belonged. This is literally the second time in a year that we've had police looking for the parents of kids found in our neighborhood. The first time, they were broadcasting a message about a lost boy from a helicopter. This time around, we got a personal visit from a police officer. (Am I living in a responsible parenting black hole???) I gave the officer a run-down of the families in our cul-de-sac. I don't know if it helped him any, but it was the best I could do. Another officer was watching out for her at another home not far from us, in which a day care is run, or I would have offered to look after her for a little while. Turtle would have enjoyed the playmate.

Once the officer left, I explained the situation to McMama, who was understandably appalled. Neither of us could quite understand how something like this could happen. But thankfully, I have Mama Jo around to put things into perspective. We were talking later that afternoon about the whole situation, and she reminded me how quickly kids learn to open doors, and how we had our own experience with that with Turtle. Luckily for us, his unexpected door-opening experience happened when both of us were watching him, so he wasn't able to go anywhere. But still...if it had been any other time, he might have wandered right out of the house without anyone knowing about it. So I'm trying not to judge. I just hope they found that girl's parents.

In any event, that's how my morning started out....so you can just imagine how the rest of the day went. I think some days we're just meant to stay in bed with our bon-bons and Stargate SG-1 dvds. I'm going to have to try that the next time my doorbell rings before 9:00. Because I'm 0 for 2 with the early morning doorbell ringing so far, and I'm thinking that somewhere, somebody is trying to tell me something.