Back in the day, we decided in order to be able to feed our growing family, The Sweetheart was going to have to bump up the paycheck. Air Traffic Control sounded like a good occupation, so off to Oklahoma City he went to the Mike Maroney Aeronautical Center for the first three months of initial training.
I was left behind in Indianapolis with two little boys to take care of all by myself. At the time, Kyle Douglas was 6 and Kristopher Ryan was 1 ½.
I could tell you all kinds of stories about the trials and tribulations of trying to work and take care of two energetic and inquisitive blond towheads by myself without any family close by. But that would be whining, and I am sure it wasn’t near as bad I remember it to be.
I’ve decided instead to tell you about our adventure when The Sweetheart graduated.
My wonderful in-laws graciously decided to take us down to Oklahoma City for my husband’s graduation. We load up the Roman Wheels Custom van with the grandparents, sister, nieces, nephew and me and the boys. The trip down was great, no problems from our little travelers, even with the long drive.
Unfortunately, their Daddy doesn’t get to come back with us because he has a couple of weeks left to wrap up. It’s been almost three months since the boys have seen their Daddy and Kristopher hasn’t been forming sentences too awfully long anyway, so when he sees him he is a little confused and is not sure what to think. He has a little trouble warming up to him and keeps saying, “Who dat Guy? Who dat Guy?” At first we think it is funny, but when Daddy comes home and he is still doing it, and out in public, we are starting to get worried! No matter how many times we say, “This is DADDY!” He would just keep saying, “Dat Guy, dat Guy.” And eventually he dropped it to just “Guy”. And so Daddy became Guy and remained that until Kristopher started kindergarten.
We arrived back in Indy, after being gone almost a week, and they dropped us off around midnight. Kyle is asleep in his room and Kristopher has finally settled down in his baby bed and I think all is well…
About ten minutes later Kyle comes creeping into my room whispering, “Mommy, Mommy, I hear somebody out in the garage!”
Now, if you are a regular follower of the blog you will remember that Kyle has a tendency to worry. But that’s not his fault. He always had to watch out for his younger brothers. Especially for number two, who has always caused him to be on guard. Number three had not come along yet, and it is just as well, he was quite busy with the one he had. So he is especially cautious and has a keen sense of hearing.
I didn’t hear anything and tell him not to worry and to go back to bed. Just as I started to walk out of his bedroom we both heard something coming from the garage.
It is way past midnight and I am home alone with two small children. I walked slowly toward the garage and stood and listened. Sure enough I heard men talking in my garage! I have been terrified of something like this my entire life. I am afraid of my own shadow, and every movie I have ever seen of an intruder in the house always left me terrified.
I always knew I would do one of two things: I would go running and screaming out the front door or I would lock myself in a room that had a telephone and call the police. Of course number two would be dependent upon the intruder not having cut the telephone lines.
They always cut the telephone lines!
Well I couldn’t go running and screaming out the front door because of the boys.
But I did have a phone. Did I use it? No.
Did I call the police? No.
Did I lock the door? No.
Did I send my little boy to his brother’s room and tell him to lock the door and not open it no matter what happened?
No. I did none of those things.
I opened the door.
I don’t need to tell you that the two men on the other side of the door were more surprised to see me than I was to see them. Actually, the look on their faces was priceless.
One was a cop. The other was my neighbor.
Kristopher, bless his little mischievous heart, had taken the garage door opener out of the diaper bag when we got home and took it to bed with him.
Okay, I don’t know how he did these things, he just did. Call me a bad mother, you didn’t live with him.
His bed was next to the light switch and he was flipping the light on, off, on, off, and the garage door, up, down, up, down all at the same time, creating his own light show at 319 Center Street.
We had great neighbors. We had patient neighbors.
We had neighbors that thought we weren’t coming back until the next day.
They called our other neighbor. He was the cop.
Thankfully neither one of them had a bad heart.
And thankfully both of them were still speaking to me the next day.
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