Adventures in Maggie Rearing Vol. 3

Well we haven't had one of these in a while and clearly our sweet Maggie was worried that you'd all forgotten about what an adventure she can be.

One of the most challenging/terrifying/interesting/terrifying things about raising a child that has special needs that is largely nonverbal is that she can't tell you where she's been, what she's thinking, if she's in pain, or if she wants a sandwich.  This isn't to say that we have issues understanding Maggie. For instance, she pretty much always wants a sandwich.

A couple of weeks back we were lucky enough to find ourselves at the coast with family. We were having a great time. By that I mean William had been vomiting enough that we decided it would be a good idea to take him to the Emergency Room.
After all, what family vacation is complete without at least one trip to the hospital.

Long story short, Will is fine.

Back to Maggie.

We were shy one adult, and worried about sweet William when I left Maggie on the porch. Leaving my daughter with food in hand, tablet playing a movie in the other, and water bottle in lap, I let my guard down for the same amount of time that it takes to make one ham sandwich.

I don't mean any kind of fancy panini affair either. Just strait up ham and provolone; no bells or whistles for this gent thank you very much.  Ok maybe some avocado, but come on! It's got the good fat!

Anyways shortly after slathering on some mustard I noticed that Maggie's familiar noises were absent from the porch. I wandered outside and found Maggie's shoes, tablet, sandwich, and water bottle, but the porch was decidedly sans Maggie.

I asked our host and the surrounding children if any of them knew where she was; with all answers in the negative panic began to set in. My first thought was that she may have seen a neighbor's hot tub and decided that it was a good time and place to take a bath.  After all, Maggie views conventional etiquette as optional.  My search resulted in no Maggie. Maggie's older sister and friend began a search of the area.  I was worried that Maggie had decided to take a walk to the beach by herself which could result in the rest of my life having significantly less Maggie than I prefer.

As I encountered strangers I asked them, "Have you seen a child with Down Syndrome? She's wearing tan shorts and she's... most likely the only child with Down Syndrome walking around alone." I was able to figure out that Maggie hadn't made it to the only beach access point that she knew about and before long I had a small group of strangers helping me search.

Thank you strangers.

My second concern was that we were very close to a highway. My anxiety was now growing that Maggie might be struck by a car, or inside a car with someone of ill intent.

I hopped in my car and began making my way towards the highway when I thankfully saw a shoeless Maggie being led by the hand by her sister's friend back towards the beach house. She had been sitting calmly in a small cafe patiently awaiting someone to come find her.

As to how she got to the cafe, we have a few theories.

1. Maggie may have wandered off of the porch and realized that the rocks hurt her bare feet and rather than risk the discomfort, just decided to stay on the smooth asphalt.
2. Maggie may have been wandered off of the porch for reasons we will never know, got somehow turned around, and simply lost her way. This might sound weird considering that she may have only gone thirty or so feet. But keep in mind that she was in an unfamiliar place and her eyesight isn't great.
3. Maggie had been watching the other teens take walks and thought to herself, "Hey, what am I doing hanging out with these little kids? I'm a teenager too! I'm taking myself a walk!"
4. This is the scariest one and may not have occured to me unless I lived in a town with a storied history of human trafficking, but Maggie may have been abducted. I've never kidnapped anyone before but I assume that a kid with special needs might be seen as an easy target.  It's possible, that her would-be abductor lured her off of the porch, realized that someone requiring as much care and attention as Maggie needs would fetch less than ideal market value, and booted her out of their van. I'm making an assumption that this would have been a van. But come on, we were all assuming van in this scenario right?
5. Finally, the stupid scenario. It's possilbe however unlikely that Maggie is a time travler. She may have warped to an alternate dimension in which she rescued a unicorn, fought off zombie hordes, and poured a perfect Manhatten for Fat Tony on the Simpsons.

Sadly and strangely, we will never know the answer. Her total absence from us was between 20 and 30 minutes.  It was a new kind of fear that I hope to never experience again. We are so happy to have her back safe and sound. Also, from now on I'm keeping one eye on her, and one on the provalone.

Cheers,

L&P