Thursday, June 29, 2006

Brush with police

Ella had her first encounter with the police today and, well, she lied to them.

Our summer nanny took the kids to the library and, after getting Ella started on a video learning game, went over to the desk with Cole to sign him up for a book club. When she came back, Ella was gone. After a frantic search throughout the library (which is on the second floor of the Ridgedale government center), they headed out the library only to find Ella walking back with 2 police officers. They had arrived at the building to testify at a court hearing and found Ella by herself outside on the sidewalk. When asked what she was doing, she said "my Mom dropped me off here." The officers then asked Ella her phone number and, through a reverse number lookup, were eventually able to track down Melinda at work. Melinda then told the officers to look upstairs in the library.

Melinda called me while I was at lunch with some friends to tell me about all of this. When I reported the story to my friends, one of them said "you've got a wanderer; this won't be the last time" He said that his daughter started wandering at 4 years old, the first time taking an uncashed check, endorsing it in crayon, and walking 2 blocks to a store to try to use it to buy candy.

Melinda thinks that Nancy is just going to laugh when she hears this story. Apparently Melinda was a wanderer, and search parties were often required to track her down in stores, etc.

I feel bad for the nanny. Ella has never done anything like that before. We allow her to play in the yard without constant supervision and I would never imagine that she would walk away. I am sure that the nanny was panic stricken in those minutes during which they could not find her.

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