Have you seen that quote on Facebook from parents about how you will question, stalk, annoy, etc. your kids just to make sure they’re safe because you love them? Well, I would look it up for you if not but I’m on my lunch break writing this at work and something about looking up stalking in Google feels like it might raise some red flags with HR. Plus, all I really want to say is I completely agree with quote and did my first bout of stalking this weekend.
Emma had a friend invite her to sleepover on Friday night and her mom said she could just walk home with this little girl since they only live two blocks from the school. At first, I was like, oh no, this is different and Emma is going to freak out. See, every day since she was 3, I have taken her and picked her up from whatever school she was in. And she cried the first 3 weeks of Kindergarten even when I walked her in. So, when the mom asked me this on the phone, I had to put her on hold and ask Emma if that’s what she wanted. See, Emma has said that she really, really wanted to be a walker on multiple occassions but we just don’t live close enough. But here we were with a chance for her to actually walk home and well, I just didn’t know how that was going to go over. She gave me a sheepish grin and agreed that yes, she wanted to walk. Then, of course, Lexi started to freak out because she didn’t want to walk to the van alone. Change! My girls are not good at it!
Friday afternoon came along and Lexi was saved because I had to pick up a friend’s son too. As for Emma, I hadn’t seen her all day and was on pins and needles to see how she was going to do. I seriously wouldn’t put it past her to be in near tears walking the two blocks. There are two ways she could have walked home so I parked my van on one of the streets so I could see the alternate way too. We waited. And waited. I just had to see how she was doing. Lexi finally started suggesting we just head home even though she was pretty interested in seeing her big sister too. I started seeing other parents and their kids and still no sign of Emma. Then all those horrible things started going through my head of kids just being picked off the street in white vans (because it’s always a white van in my head). So, I told the kids, ok, now I’m getting worried it’s been so long, we’re going to have to go look for them. So I started to take off, looking back in my rearview just to make sure I hadn’t missed her. I turned left at the corner and was then one street away from the alternate route. And there was Emma and her friend on the other street.
She was crossing the road and drinking from her reusable soda can we bought a few weeks ago. You could tell she was having fun and talking a mile a minute. And then she spotted the van. I rolled the windows down at the stop sign where we met and she was all, “Hey, Mommy! Hey, Tucker! Hey, Lexi!” And then I was all, “I gotta go, there’s a line behind me!” And we were off, headed home and I watched in the rearview mirror as she finished her walk.
She had no idea I had waited a good 10 minutes for her. It just happened that we met at the stop sign. She just figured I had just picked Lexi up and was on my way home. I guess it shouldn’t be a big deal. Kids walk home all the time. But for us, it was a first. One of those Mom Moments where you look at your kid and go, You’re growing up, stop doing that.
And it won’t be the last first-time she’ll have with her mommy stalking her through it.
This is me. EXACTLY. I cannot tell you how hard it has been this year with Matthew starting High School and me trying to get used to him taking Public Transit with friends or walking alone to Leila’s school to wait for me. He has gone to sleep-away camp, retreats and even went to Philadelphia on a service trip last summer but it has always been a church-related activity so I was able to let him go without worrying (too much). Now that he is in a high school with 300 ninth graders instead of our tiny elementary school where his graduating eighth grade class was 19, I don’t know all of his friends and their parents. It’s been an adjustment and it hasn’t been an easy one. Leila is another story. Lately, she and her friends have been asking if they can go to a large shopping mall without supervision. I haven’t been able to leave them at the mall and return but do let them shop on their own while staying in the mall myself. Each stage of their growing up is a little step further away and I am completely unprepared for it. Leila loves to remind me that the first time I was allowed to go to the movies on the bus with friends I was 10 years old (I went to see Grease with friends who were 11 and 12) a full 2 years younger than she is now. I remind her that it was 1978 and the world was different then. That’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!
Good luck with the changes. You’ll have to let me know how to handle them. 🙂
Well, I know I’m doing something right if you do it, Carolyn!!
Well that was a God moment there, God knows your love and corcern for Emma, so He let you see her just for that minute so you would know that she is ok. That is just like God He checks on us all the time, never leaves or forsakes us. He wants to make sure His children are doing ok. Wow can you imagine the love that you have for Emma and Lexi is not even close to the love our Heavenly Father has for all His children. That is Awesome
That is SO EXACTLY what I would have done!!! We really need to make sure they’re bffs in high school so that they will never get away with anything – hee-hee.
Works for me! So excited they will go together!!