Worst Nightmare

Today’s Manic Monday is a bit different. Usually, I offer some suggestions for ways to tame the insane demands on parents of young kids and in particular, kids with special needs.  But sometimes, a day is manic even when you’re on vacation and have removed every possible demand. And sometimes, there isn’t any strategy you can impose, because you’re already in a jam. Then you just need to let the universe help you.  

Here’s our story from ten years ago today. There is no journal entry from this day because I just didn’t have it in me to help Mikey create one.

The Story

It was the last day of our trip. We were in Ocean City, MD.  We figured we’d stop there, check out the beach and the boardwalk and have one last day of fun before we headed home.  add fun and break up the driving into shorter chunks: sounds great, right?

Well, we were waiting to cross the street, and my worst nightmare happened: Mikey was put in danger, and it was my fault.  We waited at the crosswalk.  I looked up and noticed we had a DON’T WALK sign.  

We live in a small town and there aren’t any busy intersections, so we hadn’t taught Mikey what to look for.  I was holding his hand, but he wasn’t usually a bolter, so we did not have a harness or any kind of restriction on his movement other than the ‘adult at a crosswalk’ hand hold.

I was chatting with Will and Dave and not entirely focused because I was waiting on the Walk sign. So, I didn’t notice when there was an opening in the traffic. Mikey saw the opening, and he pulled his hand out of mine! He darted out into the road!

Our whole lives could have changed forever on that day.  We got lucky because… I bet you can’t guess how this sentence will end… We got lucky because the next group coming up the road was a gang of bikers on giant motorcycles. They stopped in plenty of time to make sure Mikey had a clear path to cross the rest of the way…and were attentive enough not to hit our family as we darted across to try to get to Mikey to safety.

When they say, “it takes a village,” they’re not kidding.  Sometimes your village will include a group of motorcyclists who just happen to be passing through Ocean City, MD.  I’m so grateful ours did – they probably saved his life.

In Hindsight

When I look back on how we raised our kids, I often pride myself on how well I thought through possible challenges and tried to address them ahead of time.  But, not thoroughly teaching Mikey how to cross the street – or – bringing a harness on vacation with us to attach his little body to mine was a COLLOSAL FAILURE on my part.  It was so irresponsible, it sometimes wakes me up at night, even now.

Crossing the Street

This is a trickier skill than you might think. Your child needs to be able to look both ways, assess whether the moving traffic is close enough to be dangerous, understand the road signs and have the restraint and physical awareness to keep their body on the sidewalk until it is safe to cross.

They need to know the difference between the sidewalk and the street and know that the cars will not (we hope) come up onto the sidewalk.  They need to move quickly across the street, especially in big cities or beach towns in the summer where the lights are set to keep everything moving at a brisk pace.  

This is a skill we asked Mikey’s school team to help teach. I only wish we had asked for help BEFORE our vacation. When you have your annual IEP, try to give a little thought to the new challenges that may be coming in the year ahead and ask your child’s school team to address them before they become a problem. In other words, learn from my mistake.