Lessons in Bad Parenting: Lesson 6

We'll call this one "Kids are really freaking stupid." I would like suggestions as to an alternate name for The Boy in light of yesterday's events. I like the way that DCup changes the name of her youngest Spawn depending on behavior--from Cupcake to Resident Evil. I want something along those lines.

The Boy plays all the time, every chance he gets, with the boy down the street. His name is Cesar and I've mentioned him before. Cesar lives exactly three doors down from us on our side of the street. So, we don't really worry about The Boy heading on down there on his own. As a matter of fact, The Boy has very definite limits to his ability to roam. He's allowed exactly from one speed bump just the south of our house to the speed bump just north of our house. That's the extent of his free area all of which is easily within eye shot of our front porch. See below:
Yesterday, The Boy went out at about 3:30 or so to go play with Cesar. At 4:00, Cesar had to leave to go somewhere with his family. Instead of coming home, as he should have and has been instructed to so very many times, The Boy decided to go on an adventure. He turned right out of Cesar's driveway and headed to Charlie Taylor Rec Center.

It took him half an hour to walk from where he was supposed to be all the way over there, through 3 major busy streets, a creek and open storm drain not to mention past the several houses with registered sex offenders. Then, there's all the unregistered ones, of course. And the one's driving cars down the road and...yeah, I don't even want to think about it. He could've been hit by a car, fallen down the creek bed or storm drain, broken a leg, picked off by someone, or one of a thousand other things and Keith and I would've had no idea where to even begin looking for him because, as we would have told ourselves, "Surely he wouldn't go THIS far away."

It just so happens that Keith is friends with one of the guys who works at the rec center and he was working yesterday. Unfortunately, Keith left his phone in the van so he didn't get the three (3) messages left for us telling us that The Boy was all the way up at there. The Boy got there at 4:30pm and the rec center closes at 5pm on Saturdays. The Boy did not make it any easier by telling everyone that he a) had been dropped off by his grandmother (who is rather unhappy to have been pulled into this whole thing) b) didn't know anyone's phone numbers and c) didn't know how to get home. See, he didn't want to go home. He wanted to stay and play on the PS2 at the rec center, the little shit. Keith's friend was left with no choice but to call the police and have The Boy brought home that way.

And so that is how my son was brought home by the police at the age of seven years old.

We were clueless that he was anywhere else but at Cesar's this entire time--all of an hour and a half. It's not unusual for him to play at Cesar's all day or for the two or three of them (Enrique plays with them, too) to be in and out of all three houses all day long.

And not only did he put himself in danger with doing this, he compounded it by lying about how he got there, dragging in his grandmother who is his staunchest ally and guaranteeing that his Christmas is going to suck royally.

I hope kids aren't like plants and need sunlight to survive because this child isn't going to see daylight until he's 18.

We are now awaiting the inevitable visit to our home by CPS. The cops were cool but I don't know what the reporting criteria is in this state. /sigh/

And my parents aren't entirely blameless, as they cursed me with having children who act just like me. I used to wander even further away from home when I was his age. So I understand the desire but still want to kill him. If I had known 20 years ago how much fun and joy parenthood would be, I'd've had a hysterectomy.