Raising Boys

Lost and found June 21, 2005

Between waking up and lunch, I lost my son and found him again. It was a little scary when it happened. I went to his school, it was his first day, only to get the shock of my life when he was not there. I’m tempted to say that I turned the school upside down looking for him but that’s not what happened. The teacher told me immediately he never arrived.

I was already suspicious his sitter might have brought him to the wrong school. But which one? There were three in the neighborhood. The sitter was still at my other son’s school bringing him lunch.

I rushed home and I told my husband and we called her (fortunately I gave her my old mobile phone) and asked where Lennon was.

She told us where she brought him and I went to that school. My other son attended kindergarten there when he was five. I got really scared when the girl who watches over the kids told me she did not see him.

Fortunately, one of the teachers came out and when I told her what happened, she told me she saw a child that she thought resembled my other son. My other son finished his kindergarten in that school at the top of his class so naturally they remembered him.

I was so relieved when the teacher came out from one of the classrooms bringing my son with her. My son called out “mommy, mommy” when he saw me and hugged me. I played, he told me. To think I was just confident the whole time he was in school that the teachers had my number and could call me whenever there was a problem.