Day 49
The Kid’s Club from church was having a garage sale, so after coffee we swung by the park. All the dogs from the neighborhood and one horse were also in attendance. The start time was 10 am, we were there at 9:30 and eager women had already cleared the place out of pyrex and the cute comforters. There were still a lot of mission-related shirts in very large sizes. Had to pass on those.
In the afternoon we went to a women’s lunch at the church. A very welcoming group. They also had mint chocolate chip ice cream. That won me over.
What should have been a quiet Saturday evening turned into a bit of a frenzy. Cali had an disagreement with her sisters, didn’t feel like her suggestions were being taken seriously by her older sibs. I can relate to her youngest child frustrations. Normally she would have gone into the back or front yard and had some alone time. But here we only have a balcony. So she slammed the door on the way out and said she was coming over to the Croc’s coffee shop,
where Kier and I were working.
When we came home 40 minutes later, we asked where she was. They said she came to see us a while ago. Our building is connected to the Crocs Resort, and we are allowed to use their facilities as our own. We use the gym and the pool often.
We spread out and looked for her in the gym, pool, coffee shop, gift shop. She was no where to be found. We asked all the guards if they had seen her, none had. We started looking out on the beach, although that seemed unlikely because she would have passed a guard on the way there. But were ran around the beach frantically with our phone flashlights. Still, nothing.
The guards were now radioing each other all around the complex. Losing a 13 year old tourist girl is bad for business. The local police would be called in next. We were starting to feel panic creeping in, when she sent us a text that she was at home now. Immediate relief. All good. She had gone up the stairs to the next floor and was sitting in the stairway. I hadn’t thought to look there. She said she didn’t hear us scrambling around looking for her.
I told her she has used her one and only Panic (your parents) Card. Kier disappeared once when she was a toddler when she crawled away in a rare blackout at the mall. I reached down to grab her and she was gone. When the emergency lights came on, she had vanished, scooted into a corner in a display where no one could see her. Madi at age two once hid in the bushes in our front yard and we couldn’t find her and were running around the entire neighborhood. We told Cali her one panic-your-parents card is now used, in full.
Kier told all the guards to never let her out of the gate alone, that she just became a teenager and sometimes gets mad. They just all nodded and said they totally understand.
Cali was still mad at her sisters, but was better by the time supper was over. I was just plain tired. I don’t usually run on the beach, and hope to never have reason to do so again.