Have you seen my child?

I’ve been madden about this since I picked Alex up from the community center tonight. Alex attends an after school program which is designed to keep kids involved and active after school until parents pick up their cherubs. I HATE BEING A WOTHM (working outside the home mother) more than you can image!!! I still get knots in my stomach knowing that I’m not the first one to hear about my son’s day when the school bell rings but I have accepted my role – if I didn’t put food on the table, we simply wouldn’t eat.

Alex loves going to the community center – he’s such a busy body and enjoys the gym/swimming/basketball/etc. The kids are dismissed from school at 3:10, then BUSSED (remember this fact for later) to the community center and I’m usually there at 4:30 to pick him up. Again, he gets on a BUS and rides to the community center – has been doing this all year now.

My stress level is maxed out this week as well. I had four economic papers due Monday, a final on Tuesday, two presentations on leadership and turnover rates for OB tonight plus an exam, another exam on Saturday and one more on Sunday and then ONE LAST OB final next Thursday and my last artsy final on Friday. Whew! Needless to say, we’ve been living off of cereal, yogurt, and pizza this week. AND PLEASE – if one “food expert” emails me to inform me of the havoc that I’m doing to my child’s body but providing such nasty foods…I’ll beat you to the punch - bad mom.

So, I leave work to quickly change into my suit for my presentation and run to pick up Alex so we can have super together before I jet off to class. I arrive at the community center and the director stops me at the door and informs me that Alex (who is age 6) WALKED WITH FOUR OTHER KINDERGARTNERS to the community center. It is like a mile long walk!!! If my head wasn’t so hot after hearing this I would have feel over. Oh, don’t worry she says, “I yelled at him and the other kids”. K – Good, he needs to be scolded especially considering he knows the routing of leaving the school and getting on the bus. I immediately explained the dangers of walking along, not telling anybody, etc and he just looked at me with a confused look to why my paranoia has evolved to what it is and say "but mom...the bus is bumpy and it hurts my butt!" I continue to explain to him how irresponsible it was to leave like he did.. BUT - ummmm….where was the supervision. Nobody seen a group of kindergarten children walking down the street from the school and stopped them to say…”hey, where are you kids going”? Needless to say I drove to the school and barked for awhile. UG – not what I needed before I had to give two presentations and take an exam over organization behavior tonight.

Amber created a posting awhile ago regarding unsupervised children wandering the streets at a young age without any apparent supervision and I immediately placed my size 10 foot in my mouth by saying “I KNOW….WHAT SORT OF IRRESPONSIBLE PARENT DOES THAT?” I’m sure that my mom was having a chuckle up in heaven when I said that. I can hear her now saying….that is what you get for being so overconfident Amanda! I guess I can now join Aisha and say “Jude Not, Lest Ye Be Judged” and if you would, please take a few seconds to look at the picture of Alex on my sidebar……waiting……..are you done looking at the picture…..got a good memory of those big ole blue eyes and blond hair? Good. If you see this child (or Aisha’s Alex wondering in his pj’s) they may not be doing this with their mommy’s approval. PLEASE CALL ME ASAP AND TELL ME! I’m working on installing a GPS system in the bands of his underwear in case this happens again. Between his gum dealing on the playground and now his walk around the neighborhood - it has been loaded week. OFFDA and TGIF!