Mr. Independent

Well, I'm sure you could've guessed which one of my children this entry is dedicated to. If you didn't, then you don't know our family.... Gavin has had a bad habit lately of taking off whenever he wants to. In the last two weeks, he's taken off for preschool without me, twice. I could always assume that's where he's going, but I want to be sure to see him go in. So I've been explaining to him how much that scares me and that I want to watch him go, assuming that telling him that much, shouldn't be asking too much of a 4 year old. But, again...today, two minutes after that conversation... "Where's Gavin?" This child is driving me nuts!

Yesterday, I went to the mall with my sister Kelly. She has a 4 year old too, named Logan. We were pushing the babies in the strollers and the big boys were just ahead of us, when a woman stopped us and randomly held out these certificates, rambling something about giving them to us for a free carousel ride (which there is no carousel I know of around this mall), and we were quick to tell her "No thank you." I could tell she didn't like us after that (total side note). Just after that, we continued straight ahead and noticed that the boys were missing. I swear we'd only looked away for maybe 1 minute. We were close to the exit where we'd parked, so I thought the boys probably ran down that wing. Kelly and I walked down there, not in a panic yet, and..... no boys. We looked the way we'd come....no boys. They had talked about the play area (which is no longer there) and I thought that maybe that's where they headed. Then, of course, my brain switches to "worst case scenario mode," and I told Kelly to go back to where those women were who distracted us. You never know - where I grew up, I wouldn't be surprised if I heard of ladies distracting mothers while people ran off with their kids. (I know, paranoid to some, but reality to others.) So I run down the wing that used to have the play area.... no boys. I start to go back to where I sent Kelly and I see her....again no boys. Then, in the distance I hear two little boys yelling for "mom." Gavin was running down the corridor looking for me. Turns out he and his cousin ducked inside a game store for at least 6 or 7 minutes. I'm surprised an employee there didn't notice two unattended little boys. Needless to say, this whole disappearing act is getting out of control! I explained to him for like....the umpteenth time that I was concerned because a "bad guy or girl" could take you away if you don't stay with mom. And when we got in the car and he saw how worried I was, he started to get a little teary and said "Mom, I don't know what I would do without you. I was scared when I couldn't find you." It was really sweet. I thought maybe we were making some headway, but apparently he was quick to forget because he did it again today. AHHHH!!!!