The Great Escape

The best looking guy I know has auburn hair, bright blue eyes fringed in long dark lashes, and a killer smile.  He dresses well but smells like paste, and is only about three feet tall . Also, he is 4-years old.  This dapper gent who stole my heart the moment I laid eyes on him is named Max.

Max’s mom, M,  is one of my closest friends, and she’s an only child.  So, Max has lots of “Aunties” of which I am proud to be one.  As an auntie, I occasionally am offered the privilege of Max-sitting.  Now, I am not a novice at child care.  I’d attach a CV, but I can just summarize:  I babysat when I was a teen; I worked at a day care during my college summers; during college I worked at the Disney Store in the children’s department (Bet you didn’t know they had departments.);  I was a family practice/pediatric nurse/school nurse, etc.;  I have a niece and nephews; I volunteer with kids.  All this to say: I know how to babysit a toddler – no, really, I do.  Keep reading through to the end if at some point you become appalled and want to picket for my removal at anything that remotely has to do with kids.

Anyway, when Max was two (See, he’s four now.  So, he survived, and M is still one of my besties.  You can keep reading.) and her hubby had an afternoon date and asked me to babysit Max.  I was thrilled to spend time with the little guy.  I showed up on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, got the instructions on where they’d be, when they’d be back, emergency numbers, etc., and they left.  Now it was just Max and me in the peace of a beautiful late Saturday afternoon.  We did what any 21st century auntie and pint size boy would do – we played Itsy Bitsy Spider on the internet over and over and over and over and over and over in both the English and Spanish versions, and then at one point he asked if I could find it in Japanese, but as the adult I knew there was a point at which I just had to draw the line (for my sake not his sake — if you read that just right the pun is intended).    Then, because it was a gorgeous December day, I decided we should walk to the park, but, I needed to, uhm, powder my nose – but not really – first.

Now, I have been in charge of toddlers before when I have “powdered my nose.”  I have left them with their toys for those few moments, with a kiss on the cheek and the instruction to stay put, come back, and the little tikes have been right where I left them, no problem.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on who’s perspective I suppose, Max happens to be a quite a bit brighter than your average bear.

I was down the hall in the powder room and listening to Max who was chattering away in the playroom.   I was washing my hands when the chattering stopped.  Hmmh…that didn’t seem like a good sign.  I raced back to the playroom.  No Max.  Let me try that again.  NO MAX!!!!!  Yep, full blown panic was setting in.

The playroom was not a big space, and I could see the kitchen and the dining room from where I was standing.  Where the heck could he have gone?  He was a super bright boy, probably a genius, but he wasn’t Houdini.  And the doors were locked with the alarm set.  I was soooo gonna have a hard time explaining this to M.

“Max?” I called, and yes, I felt stupid. “Max, where are you?” No answer was forthcoming.

I tried again, louder this time.  “Max, come on, buddy.  Come on out.”  Nope, nothing.   I  walked into the living room and looked around at the open space.  There was nowhere to hide.  My heart was racing ;my mouth was dry.  In all my years as an Air Force nurse or a  high school nurse – those were some terrifying years – I had never been this scared.  I moved back into the kitchen.

Then a small noise, just tiny really.  A scratch on the glass, kind of like the ones you hear in scary movies that means the monster is RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW.  So, I turned slowly and looked out the French doors, and there’s Max standing on the other side of the keyed-locked dead-bolted doors, and he’s smiling that charmed angel smile at me – You have got to freaking be kidding me!!!!  And there was no key in sight.

I glued myself to the door.  “Max, how did you even get out there?”  He pointed down, and I looked.  There, beside the French doors cut into the wall, was a small Max-sized doggie door.  Oh.  Ooops.

“Max, sweetie, come back inside,” I stated reasonably.  He appeared to consider this request with all the merit it deserved, and then he shook his head “no.”  Right, because, why would he?

“Max, come on back through the dog door so we can go to the park.” But, and I saw him thinking this through, why would he come back inside just to go outside? He was already outside.  So, again he shook his head.  Obviously I was not cut out for hostage negotiations.  Except, to be clear here, I’m not sure which of us was the hostage; I’m thinking it might have been me.

“Max, ” now I was pleading, “Max, please, please come back inside.” I felt like shrieking, crying, or maybe finding some chocolate.  I knew M would have that.  She always had great chocolate.  But if I wandered away from the French doors what would Max do?  I mean as long as I could see him I would know if he attempted to make a bomb or rewire the house.  Not that I could stop him because I WAS IN THE FREAKING HOUSE!

So, now I started reconsidering my options.  Could I fit through that doggie door?  Maybe, but if I got stuck, what then?  Also, having to have a contractor come and cut the wall out from around me was not the best thing for my self-image.  Could I take the doors off their hinges?  Yes, but that would involve going into the garage, leaving Max unsupervised (DO NOT LAUGH!) and finding tools.  Maybe I wouldn’t be able to get the doors back on afterwards either.  So, my best option was probably to run out the front door, scale the block fence, and sit on the patio with Max until M got home.  Drawbacks to this were the unsupervised timeframe, my undoubtedly bloodied hands and knees, and that M would probably kick my rear, but, I was gonna have to go with that last one.

“Max,” I made my voice stern, “DO NOT MOVE.  I am coming to get you.”  He looked at me for a moment and then shrugged.  And do you know what that little booger did?  He dropped down onto his hands and knees and crawled back through the doggie door.

Well, Max and I went to the park, and we finished our afternoon.  We had a fabulous time.  Mind you, I placed a chair in front of the doggie door so there would be no further episodes of the Great Escape.  Max managed to make his sippie cup and a couple of books go into the great beyond past the doggie door, but I had thwarted all further attempts for a full blown Max escape.

When M came home, I made full disclosure.  After she finished laughing uproariously, she walked over to a giant pewter fruit bowl on the kitchen counter where she casually fished out a set of keys.  Holding them aloft she said, “These unlock the French doors.”   Huh.  I had run through various complex scenarios in my mind on how to rescue Max while the easiest possible answer lay waiting for me literally steps away had I only thought to look.

In medicine there is a saying: “When you hear hoof beats, don’t look for zebras.”  Darned if I hadn’t gone looking for zebras.  While most of the time in my life I have found that the simplest answer is often the correct one, I have a difficult time remembering that.  Panic clouds my vision when I don’t know which way to turn, and those zebra stripes start looking really good.  This is true for me in emotional situations as well as tangible.

When I start trying to dig myself out of holes, no matter their depth, no matter their cause, maybe what simply needs to be done is that I wait at least for a time and contemplate the “whole” itself.  Maybe, as in countless Bible stories God Himself will provide the solution (i.e. He stilled Abraham’s hand above Isaac.  He provided manna from heaven for the Israelites.  The Holy Spirit at work in the New Testament.), or maybe He will allow someone to intervene in an everyday miracle like by throwing me a rope.   No matter how He does it, He will do it.  I just have to let Him.

Now, I do not believe that God pushed Max back through that doggie door, but someone protected him out on that patio while I freaked out just a little.  And I’d just like to say a little, “Thank you and Amen.”