We have a fenced in yard and I’ve been ok allowing Sam outside for a few minutes without me. A few days ago, he wanted to go out back and play as soon as we got back from picking his sisters up from school. I sent him through the gate and then went in the house to open the back door. I saw him, went to get a drink and grab some crackers and went to check on him again. He was no where in sight.

It seems I’d forgotten that the neighbors behind us had replaced their fence and when they did, the fencers left an 8 inch or so gap between our fences. (Who gives up an 8 inch strip of their entire yard, btw?) We’d had it blocked with the wheelbarrow, but I’d been doing yard work and using it. And Sam found the gap and decided to go exploring. I was this close || to calling 911 when I found him, 2 houses away. He got that far in less than 5 minutes. I may have yelled at him like a fishwife, too. Poor kid. Poor me.

Back in the relative safety of our yard, I realized his glasses were missing. Wordy dirds! $#&@$^! I asked him where they were and of course he said they were “out there!” So, we retraced all of his steps, as well as a 2 yr old can remember, looking for the glasses. Now that my priceless child was safe, I was almost in tears over the thought of having to replace the glasses already. Fortunately we found them. He had tossed them off when he started crying after I yelled at him. Poor guy.

The next home improvement project will be fixing that gap.