Breathing is good.

Dylan asked to go to a friends house to play this afternoon. I said no because I had already learned this morning that the friend was sick. He was not happy about that. He tried to leave out the front door, but I stopped him. So he decided to go out the backyard. This was a little while after the first attempt so I thought he was just going to play in the backyard. 10 min later I thought I better go check and see what he was doing. He was not there. No prob. I mean, he was going to be in trouble, but I wasn't concerned. I went to all the normal places and friends houses and he was not anywhere. I was starting to freak out a little bit by this time. It had been maybe 20 min since I had last seen him by this time. One of the mom's asked if I had checked at a certain house, but I was pretty sure that Dylan had never been there. So I continued to look in all the unusual places now. The people that are home, but don't have little kids home. My next door neighbor said that he would take his baby and walk around the neighborhood. I decided to drive to Dylan's friends that don't live on our street in case he decided to walk there. No luck. I then went back to the house to see if he was there hiding or something even though I knew he hadn't come in while I was there. He wasn't hiding. I was going to drive over to the school that's just down the street to see if he had gone there to play. He has never gone anywhere that I didn't know before. I mean, he's not a wanderer. He's gone to friends before without telling me, but never somewhere that I wouldn't know where to look. I stopped at that house that I was sure he wasn't at on my way over to the school, and guess what? He was there. The mom opened the door and said, "Do you want your son." I said yes and then told her the whole story. She felt so bad. She had asked him if I knew where he was and he said yes. I guess he had gone there the week before with Orion, so he did know them. About the time that I had to start looking in the unusual places I was starting to panic. I could have become hysterical at a moments notice. I noticed that I wasn't breathing as often as I should, so I just concentrated on that. Breathing. It kept me sane until I found him. When we got home I asked him why he thought he was in trouble. He said, "Don't go." That's right, you're not supposed to go somewhere without telling mommy. Then I just broke down and told him how scared I had been and worried. He felt bad. We had a good long hug. A very different scenario than that would have happened in the days of my older children when I would have screamed and been so mad. Dylan is grounded from friends, which he was not happy about, but his mommy stayed in control, other than crying, which is a good thing. Thank goodness for breathing though. I'm a huge fan. Also, prayer, I know that helped keep me calm as well. Huge fan of prayer as well. Breathing and prayer.