Given Lily’s past history of escaping, it should come to no surprise to anyone that a week into living in the new/old house – we (I) lost Lily (temporarily). Ella and Lily were playing in the backyard. Lily loves digging in the sandbox. Despite the fact that it’s not new, just moved from the other house, being in a new location has made it Lily’s favorite outdoor activity. While they were occupied, I ran inside briefly. Doors and windows open. When I came out a minute later, Ella was still busy playing, but Lily was not in the sandbox. I figured she was in the nearby playhouse. Nope. Quick sweep of the backyard, no Lil. Not in the garage. Not sitting on the front steps (her other haunt), not in the house. Ella and I were yelling for her. While I was a little nervous, this wasn’t a new feeling. There were quite a few times in my childhood where my sister would disappear (around Lily’s age) and I’d be running around the front and back yards looking for her. Typically, she’d be found under the deck or in some other shadowy place. I figured it was most likely, given statistics, a case of child adventure rather than child abduction. Sure enough, a few minutes after our search began, we found Lily. She had ventured over into the neighbor’s open garage to pick through their assortment of children’s bikes. In the process she’d put her sippy cup down and tipped one over. She was rather distraught over this misfortune. She was more distraught that I removed her from the garage and didn’t bring a bike with me. We were joking about having Lily microchipped, or inserted with some sort of GPS tracking device. But, that seemed inhumane, despite the fact that we do it to animals and it works great. Loran did find the Mommy I’m Here Child Locator from Amazon. Two days later, it was in our hands. Basically, there’s a little locator (the bear) that you attach to your child and a remote that you can use that makes the locator emit a loud/high pitched beeping sound. I thought hearing it would freak Lily out and she’d burst into tears and refuse to wear the bear. Wrong kid. Lily embraced the piercing sound and pleaded for more. She looooooves her “beeping bear”. She would wear it around the clock if she could. She struts around with it on, talks to it, sings to it and shows it off about town. Luckily we’ve never had to use it for its intended purpose (yet), but the few times we’ve beeped it, per Lily’s request, she’s been all giggles and smiles. Obviously, not fool proof, but it’s better than a shock collar or subcutaneous microchip.
Of course, she can’t give us a little drama. Lily likes to pile it on. The day she and Ella were due to return to our new/old house after the move, we got a message from Nana that Lily had bit the tip right off of her Ducky pacifier. We officially gave up the pacifiers in October. Then, after three months of pretty crappy sleep, we gave in and let Lily have her WubbaNub, Ducky, back in January. Everyone rejoiced, and slept better. Of course, the first night in the new/old house, Lily had to go and ruin one of her comfort objects. Thankfully, Blanky was still in fine form. Rather than send Nana on a difficult hunt to find a replacement, Loran and I just took a deep breath and steeled ourselves for an interesting night. Well, to prove the point that you can’t really prepare for anything when you’re a parent, Lily took the loss of Ducky with ease. We showed her it was broken, cut the pacifier off the duck’s bill and gave her Ducky, sans pacifier. This was mildly acceptable, but Lily would rather have no Ducky, than altered Ducky. A few times, she handed me the Ducky and asked for her “fire” (pacifier), but when I told her it was broken, she processed it and gave up. Hasn’t been an issue and her first night in the new/old house was perfectly fine. And we’re not back to middle of the night soothing and rocking sessions like we were the first time we gave up the duck.
Not sure what she was doing, just caught her watching a show with her cheeks sucked in and hands clasped. Weirdo.
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