The day we picked up Emily from the police station.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. Everybody in the family was home. A rarity at this point in our lives, as I was working for a hotel and Josh was working for the prison. We had pretty un-predictable schedules that we tried to work out to keep the kids with one of us as much as possible. Emily was outside playing in our incredibly small “yard” which consisted of concrete and a clothes hanger. She decided that she wanted to go to the park.

Only she didn’t tell us that she wanted to go to the park.


She just went.


By the way, we lived a good half a mile from the park.


Across at least one fairly busy intersection and several non-busy roads, but roads nonetheless.


I don’t remember who went to check on her, her father or I, but she was gone. This wasn’t completely unusual, as she had made several friends in the neighborhood and would wonder off to their house without telling us. (Thank goodness she tells us everywhere she goes now, almost to a point it drives me crazy!) So Josh heads over to have her come home and she is not at any of her normal homes away from home.

Panic begins to set in.

The only problem here is that Jacob is an infant, asleep upstairs in our apartment and someone has to stay close to home because he has been asleep for a while and could wake up any minute. So Josh takes off in the car to search for her and we grab a couple of friends that live near by and they take off in their cars to look as well. While I worried my self silly about her whereabouts.

Meanwhile, in the land of Emily she is hopping fences and having a grand old time. A concerned citizen sees her out roaming around, and realize that this poor child is probably not in the right area, as she doesn’t recognize my adorable child. So she calls the police (yes, I said police). Once the police show up they try to talk to her, only Emily decided to be afraid of the police and runs. from. him. Oh yes, she did. And she outran him! She would not have anything to do with him. Finally they get the help of a nice lady to help get her in the back of the police car. And they take her down to the station.

During this time we are freaking out! We cannot find her- of course not, she is with the cops! So we finally break down and call 911 and tell them that we have lost our daughter. She has been missing for about 30 minutes and we have been searching, but are unable to find her. They ask to describe her, and when Josh does they tell him to come on down, they think they have her at the police station. So down Josh goes.

He walks into the campus police station and there she sits, happy as a clam. Drinking a grape juice box and coloring in a police safety-coloring book.

She was three years old. And we had to pick our daughter up from the police station. I sincerely hope it is the last time that it happens. Emily still remembers this happening. She still remembers having the grape juice box. I still remember it was a juice box from Wal-Mart.
She also knows to tell me where she is- at all times.