For those who don’t already know, Nathan (our 4 yo) was lost for awhile this morning.

Many thanks to those of you who were up early this morning to see this prayer request and pray! Whew. I hope to never feel so helpless again in my life! Several of you have asked what happened. Now that I’ve had a chance to take a NAP and recuperate after that ordeal, here are the details as best as we can piece them together.

We think Nathan must have heard me leave at 5:15 this morning when I left to take Josh to basketball. He said he came downstairs and couldn’t find me in my office so he went to other parts of the house crying and looking for me. When he couldn’t find me anywhere in the house he said he went out to the garage, turned the light on and looked in there for me. When he couldn’t find me outside he decided to go to the neighbor’s house (over 1/2 a mile away). I can’t even imagine why he would think we would ever leave him home alone. We NEVER leave him anywhere alone. He said he didn’t see Emily in her bedroom, but I don’t even think he thought to look there after he went downstairs. He came back in the house and got himself all dressed –

pants, shirt, shoes, coat, hat, everything. He found a place where the barbed wire fence was off the ground enough for him to fit through. He climbed under it and started to walk through the field to our neighbor’s house. I’m SO THANKFUL he didn’t go to the road! He’s never been allowed to go to the road alone and this a.m. even while crying and in a panic he remembered to not go to the road and went through the field. I’m glad he didn’t decide to walk to the neighbor’s house the other direction because it’s across the interstate!

When Emily woke up at 7:15 she went to check on Nathan and couldn’t find him in the house. She called me hoping that maybe I had taken him with me, but she knew I would have left a note if I had done something out of the ordinary. When I told her that I didn’t have him then we were both really worried and I told her to go look in the house again and to look outside, but she said the doors were all locked and didn’t see how he could have gone outside. I thought maybe he might have fallen asleep under his bed, or wrapped himself up in a blanket in one of the chairs in the house, etc. But when she called back to say she looked in the entire house and didn’t see him ANYWHERE then I had her call grandma to come help her and I called our neighbor (Tim’s cousin who is also a nurse) who lives about 2 miles away. This was all while I was just barely leaving the Y and a good 40 minutes from home. After I called Tim’s cousin to go help Emily then I called Tim so he could be praying while I tried think of more #’s of people to call to go help Emily look for him until I could get there. I also called my friend whose parents live down the road from us so she could go there and look or talk to her parents to look around their place.

I was SO glad that I still had my friend Lee’s (who lives in Seattle) phone # in my cell phone so I could call her to put a note out to all of my SHS friends. Oh dear. It *JUST NOW* dawned on me that it was dawn thirty when I called Lee in Seattle. SO SORRY. Lee. It honestly didn’t even cross my mind until right this minute that you are an hour earlier than us and it was only 6 something your time…. egads.. Tell your family sorry that I called so early! Here is a picture of Nathan showing us how and where he walked through this tall grass to the neighbor’s house.

At one point Emily did call back to say she found him, but she was crying hysterically and I didn’t know if he was ok or not or where she found him or anything which was when I called Karen, a fellow homeschooling-blogging & co-op friend to put a note on our co-op loop. Karen, Thanks MUCH for posting a note to our local friends! I’m SO glad you’re always up early! I knew my mom was on her way and would call me as soon as she got there which should have only taken about 10 minutes and after 20 I still hadn’t heard from her so of course my mind started to wander! I really did try to take my thoughts captive, but it was a struggle. During this time I called another dear friend, Melissa, from church to pray and I’m so thankful that she kept talking to me and keeping me on the phone so I could stay focused on getting myself and Josh safely home. She quickly refocused me everytime I started to rationalize why no one was calling me back and yada yada yada. THANKS MUCH, Melissa!

Nathan said while he was in the field walking to the neighbor’s house he kept looking back at the house and when he saw a light on he turned around and started to walk back toward home. This must have been shortly after Emily got up and realized he was gone and called me. At some point one of the neighbor gals from quite aways up our road saw him out in the field and called her dh to call us. He called the house about the same time Emily started looking outside for him. When Nathan got back to the house he couldn’t get in because he had locked the door when he left since we always lock the door when we leave (what a little thinker!). He evidently ran from the front door to the back door trying to get in and Emily just missed him each time she went to the front or the back. She finally found him and now, WHEW, we are all quite relieved to say the least!

I hung up with Melissa as I was getting off the interstate and just then Tim called to say that he had talked to his cousin and Nathan was OK! I still didn’t know anything more than that, but it was sure a relief to drive the last few miles home knowing he was ok! It was so hard on me to be so far away and I felt really bad for Tim being even further away. It’s a parent worst nightmare. First of all to even have to go through something like this. And, secondly to have both parents be so far away and not able to help do anything but call other people to help and pray.

Thanks for the phone calls and emails everyone! I’m so glad for the internet and cell phones and friends to pray quickly!
By the time I got home my mom and Emily were getting breakfast ready and everyone was ok but ME! I was a basket case! I’m so glad my mom was able to run down to be with Emily right away. THANKS mom!

My friend Kim has a GREAT idea! Josh should just stay the night at her house every night before basketball and then we wouldn’t have to worry about this again!! Josh stayed the night there on Sunday night so I wouldn’t have to take everyone to basketball HOURS before we had to be to co-op.

Well.. now I’m just rambling! We really appreciate everyone’s care and concern so much more than I could ever tell you.

Oh.. and these pictures were taken later in the day when Nathan walked through the whole series of events giving us the run down from his perspective. I’ll save that for the next post.