Scary things can happen so quickly. It was a normal evening at the lake (Hubby’s family summer place) right after dinner. Hubby’s sister and husband were packing up the car to return home a little unexpectantly so I tried my best to keep their little guy who is two and half months older than Baby occupied and off of his mother’s leg while she tried to pack up everything. I had Baby and Nephew Baby playing in the living room, we sang the clean up song and they were actually picking things up and putting them away. Baby even was singing clean up, or kee uh as he says, but he’s trying. Hubby was in and out of the house. Big Boy was watching the Babies clean up, but not helping. He asked me for ice cream since he had eaten all his dinner without fuss. I told him right after his aunt and uncle left, in a little while, because I needed to keep Nephew Baby away from his mom right now. He stood around and then asked again and I told him to be patient for a little longer. He wandered off towards the kitchen, I assumed Grandma was still in there and he would ask her for his ice cream. I don’t think even 5 maybe 10 seconds went by before Hubby walked into the house and looked around and asked, “Where is Big Boy?” And thus began the most frightening 5 minutes or so of my life. I told him he just wandered into the kitchen, he wanted ice cream. Hubby walked over and called out, “he’s not in here.” I told he was just here, 5 seconds ago…I looked out the window towards brother-in-law, sister-in-law and Grandma who turns out, was outside by the car and called out to ask if Big Boy was there. They said no. We peeked into the bedrooms, the house is pretty small so it took all of two seconds to look around, we called out to him, no answer. Hubby bolted outside from the porch and ran down to the lake, ran along the water line and when I saw him run out onto the dock towards the boat I kinda went a bit numb. There was no way, it was 5 seconds, Hubby came in by the porch so he would have seen him had he gone out that way, there was no way…and the ktichen door makes noise, I kept thinging and I knew it had just not been long enough, and had he gone out the kitchen, the others would have seen him, wouldn’t they have??? By this time someone, I think Grandma headed over to the Aunt’s house across the property because he often went there, but he usually told us and we would watch him walk over. They came running out and said he was not with them, then everyone started running around, it’s a pretty large property with lots of wooded areas and a rather large shoreline. I ran outside leaving the Babies inside, sister-in-law took my place inside and checked under the beds, where Big Boy sometimes hid during hide and seek, but we weren’t playing hide and seek! I ran through a wooded area, everyone was screaming his name. It was maybe a few minutes at most, but seemed like forever. Hubby had come back up around the house and then back to the lake again and the boat. It was strange, I wanted to find him, but at the same time was afraid of where he would be found, namely, in the lake. The aunts were running up towards the main road looking through the woods there. Everyone was heading back towards the house, he was nowhere. Hubby called over to the next house over, which was a volunteer fireman’s camp, they were sitting out at a picnic table kinda glancing over at the commotion. When they realized what was going on they got up to come over. It was then it happened. Hubby went into the house to check his sister had checked under the beds and he screamed for Big Boy again and heard his tiny voice. He yelled, “he’s in the house,” and went outside to tell everyone we found him. I heard him yell this and ran inside, I heard sister-in-law yell louder than I’ve ever heard as I walked inside. She was holding him and he was crying hysterically. I took him, she said she thought she scared him. He had been hiding under the kitchen table the entire time, he never left the house. I was right, there wasn’t enough time for him to have gotten outside, but you just never know and of course with the lake there, you just panic. When he finally stopped crying he said he wanted ice cream and I had said no so we went under the table. When he heard us calling him, he got scared because we sounded mad and didn’t answer.

I’m not sure he really understood why we got so freaked out. He was upset because his Aunt yelled at him and he said she scared him and he refused to even hug her goodbye when she left a little while later. I tired to explain it to him, to drill it in that unless we knew he was hiding and we were playing a game that he had to answer when we called him, even if he was scared. We waved goodbye to the car and then went inside to have our ice cream.

The next two days were uneventfull, although we were all a touch paranoid and kept several pairs of eyes on him. It can happen so fast. Obviously it was nothing, he never even left the house, but it was enough to give me a few more gray hairs.

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