| Lachlan Gets Lost |
| Written by Lyndal Johnston | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 09 February 2011 18:30 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 The first time it happened as a mum was when I lost my toddler daughter. It was my first day out of hospital with a new bub after a c-section. The husband was limping from a corked thigh from soccer. With neither of us very mobile it was, in hindsight, not a good idea to go shopping. But, two weeks in hospital and I needed a coffee shop and some retail therapy.  Although it was a traumatic experience losing my little one, she was eventually found. The delightful blonde moppet had parked herself up on the sofas at David Jones, and was watching a screening of Nemo on a new TV with surround sound. After this experience I never went shopping with both of my kids (at least while they were tiny) at the same time. I simply don’t have enough eyes for that!  But the story that topped all stories was my sister’s experience. She visited a local purveyor of prams and baby gear situated on a main road. She placed her toddler in the child-proof play area only to discover a short time later that he had undone the child-proof gate and was toddling along the median strip of a busy main road out front of the shop. I was pregnant at the time with my first and this story was the cause of many nightmares. Now that my kids are bigger (6 and 9) I thought that such nightmares would be over. Not so it seems.  My New Year’s resolution is to shed the 20 kg I put on due to 18 months or so of surgery and depression. I decided that this past weekend was the beginning of my get-fit regime and I would commence by taking my six-year-old son out for a bike ride while I walked behind him. He has proudly graduated from his training wheels in the last week and so the original idea was to go down the back to the oval and cricket pitch behind our house. The idea grew until it became a walk along Warners Bay Foreshore. The plan was to park at Stinky Corner and head towards the new over-water walkway which lead towards Valentine Boat ramps...NOTE - HEAD TOWARDS! Not bloody go there!  It started out normally with him whingeing that he couldn’t do it, me encouraging him, my friend Belinda telling him to stop being such a wussy and his sister merrily skipping along. He stopped when he was told; he wore his helmet; he pushed the bike up the hills. But then, as we reached the Eleebana straight stretch, Captain Confidence was born...and off he rode. It was Lachlans Big Bike Adventure.  My heart skipped a beat, and then started pounding. I could literally hear it in my ears. I felt sick and frightened at the same time. I started walking towards where I last saw him and discovered not one but two paths he could have taken. I chose the low path knowing his fear of hills. This low path went under a tunnel and out into a busy cul-de-sac off the main road and led up to either a park or down into marsh and bus land. No sign of my son. No one had seen him.  I upped the pace and raced back and up the other side over the hill and down the path. I stopped a family and frantically asked if they had seen a little boy wearing a white Bart Simpson shirt, riding a red bike, with glasses and a blue helmet? They had and wondered why he was on his own. They were the last positive sighting.  Starting to get frantic by now, I realised I had left my phone at home on charge. I couldn’t contact my friend with my daughter, still paddling in the water at least two kilometres back from where I was now. A wonderful lady stopped and offered to look again on the other side, two others helped out as did a wonderful man. Thank you to them all. I ran back over the other side and headed to the park where I heard a squeal of car brakes and instantly thought the worst…  And then I saw him - followed by two angels - trudging up the path on his bike. Still going.  He had realised that we were not following him, and had almost gotten to the park at Valentine when he decided to stop in the shade on a seat and wait for us to catch up. The lovely ladies found him for me. I raced back across the road, thanked them profusely and everyone else who had helped out as we passed them on the way back to the car. At this stage it was so hot and, as we had been out longer than originally planned, it was decided that ice cream for lunch was on the cards.  It was now that The Child Who Never Learns skipped off ahead. He wasn’t counting on coming across his rescuers, who instantly pulled him up short. Lessons indeed.  Ice cream done, we headed home. One cold shower and loads of water later and I found myself sunburned to a crisp and utterly exhausted. Yes, I am getting a bike and a rack to cart it on. Yes I will keep up with the little bugger next time but, until then it looks like he is confined to the oval and the cricket pitch at the back of the house. Captain Confidence can put his undies back on the inside of his pants for a while.
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We’ve all experienced it at some stage as a parent. That sinking feeling in your gut; the do-I-vomit-now, do I scream, and if I do, who will hear me or care? It’s happened to me twice now as a parent, many times as an aunty and, I’m sure, with grandchild number four on the way it’s bound to happen many more times in my life.
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