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

Babies are Expensive!!!

Yes, babies are spendy, I don't just mean just the feeding, clothing, and baby proofing.  I am referring to the fear based industry of baby safety products.  Cribs are the particular focus of my ire today.  When we found out we were pregnant with our current youngest, the wife was excited because some months earlier she had convinced me that we needed to keep the crib that had been collecting dust for a decade in the garage.
I suppose I should point out that "excited she won the crib discussion" was not her first reaction to discovering that we had a baby on the way.  That would make her a petty sociopath.  It was probably in the top 20 among the whirl wind of emotions though.  Moving on.

When I attempted to assemble the crib I found that several parts were missing.  This being the age of  "you can find anything online if you are willing to put in the time and effort" I did a quick google search and learned that our particular crib had been discontinued and the company responsible for said crib was no longer able to sell the supporting parts. Truth be told I could have continued to look and probably would have found the parts I needed.  But if I ever venture into the black market I would like to think it will be for something more exciting than crib parts.  A freeze ray perhaps, or maybe even the thigh bone of one of the Beatles.

Sweet sweet Hippo Bacon, someday you will be mine.

The reason that the crib had been discontinued was that it was found to be unsafe.  This surprised me due to the fact that most products have to go through some pretty extensive safety testing prior to hitting the market.  I imagine this to be even more crucial in baby centric products.  I would think these tests worthy of a CSI montage to demonstrate the passage of several weeks of different models of cribs in wind tunnels and having heavy weights dropped on them and maybe even some animal testing.  Nothing cruel mind you, maybe just fill it with bunnies, you know, for science.

Obviously I want any product that I'm going to lay my offspring in to be as safe as possible.  This is where they get you.  Parental fear is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.  It is a useful force as it kept our ancestors from decorating their children with meat necklaces.  While they were fashionable at the time; they also attracted sabretooth dingos like no bodies business.  The evolutionary advantage of parental fear is what causes us to spend top dollar for the best safety products for our kids.  The evolutionary disadvantage of parental fear is that it also causes us to spend top dollar on things that are trendy so our kids don't get turned into social outcasts.

No matter how ugly

 Back to my original point.  The crib was a lost cause, apparently it was made by someone who obviously hated babies and probably greased some palms to get it pushed through safety tests.  I imagine that previous crib models were recalled due to being burlap sacks filled with rusty nails, wicker baskets packed with cobras, or just a balance beam that the baby was placed on over a wading pool filled with scorpions.

It helps the baby with balance.

So we had to buy a new crib.  Being thrifty and on a budget we did save the old mattress.  The 51 inch mattress.  Which it would turn out, does not fit new cribs as they require a 52 inch mattress.  Now the following may invite judgement but to you I say bring it on.  We just used the mattress and crammed the gap with pillows.  You know what happened?  Not a damn thing.  Yes, there was a small chance that she could have got an arm wedged in it, she didn't.  Of course we did tilt the odds in our favor by using the crib primarily for clean laundry storage, (what you put your clean laundry in your dresser right away? Weirdo!).


So again, we must pump more money into the fear based baby safety industry in order to ensure that our kiddo does not smother herself in her sleep.  For one more inch of mattress.  Dammit.

I know I'm just frustrated about having to spend money and on a logical level I understand that the rules evolve that govern such things as cribs.  As more information is gathered about what is safest I want changes to be made and I certainly do not want to advocate for unsafe equipment to be used by babies.  But supposedly the son of god was born in a barn and he seemed to do pretty alright. Right?


L&P