This guy looks innocent enough, doesn’t he? He’s just your run of the mill 4 year old enjoying a round of delicious Oreos… or so you think. You see, this laugh right here, it’s downright evil. On Brody’s 4th birthday I posted the following:
Brody,
Happy 4th birthday, my little love! Today, on this special day, I would like to tell you that I fear you may turn out to be a serial killer when you grow up. I mean, you definitely have a leg up on Ted Bundy, and you’ve only been around 4 short years.
You have charm and charisma that rivals a french pool boy, yet I turn around often to find you sneak attacking your brothers.
Your smile can get you out of almost any predicament in our house, yet your cunning moves can send your brothers into tears.
There have been times that you have loved me so hard that you nearly strangled me, and many more times that your excitement has led to your fingernails drawing blood in my arms… neck… face.
You love hard, and you fight harder, my dear Brodrick. I wish you many more happy birthdays to come… and my fingers are crossed that none of them are behind bars.
Love,
Mommy
PS. I’ll delete this if Dateline ever calls me for an interview. I’m ride or die for you.
Brody’s birthday was in June. My foreshadowing of his future run-ins with the law is both ominous and slightly comical given the fact that I thought his first face-to-face with the police might come maybe fourteen or more years down the road… not 4 months.
It was busy wedding season, and I had asked one of our young (high school aged) babysitters to have a daily gig at Larkspur. She came Monday – Friday from 3-6pm as I had a shoot almost every day for 3 months straight. She was/is a major help for our family. The boys love her, and she has become a staple at our house! Brody actually loves her the most. He talks often about his love for her, and how he will marry both me and her someday. I would leave Brody at home with the sitter each day, and they would walk the trail together to get the bigger boys from school. Brody loved this routine.
On the day of “the incident”… I didn’t have a shoot. I reveled in the idea that I could run to the grocery store while the babysitter did her daily routine. The mistake I made was telling Brody that I didn’t have to work. He lost his mind that he couldn’t go to the grocery store with me. I had a TON of things to purchase, so going solo was really what I wanted to do. I slipped out of the house even though he was upset, and figured he would calm down when they left to get the big boys from school.
Boy was I wrong.
While at the meat counter I get a text from the sitter that Brody had BOLTED from her care. He had ridden his bike that day while she was afoot, and she just could not catch his little maniac feet that sprinted like hamsters around the circles of his pedals. She had been looking for him for quite some time. The neighbors were looking for him too. They had received word from other neighbors driving in that they had seen him riding out on the street… towards the grocery store, of course.
I get a few more text messages that they REALY CAN’T FIND HIM. At this point we’re about 20 minutes into the ordeal and I realize that this is pretty serious and that my FOUR YEAR OLD was roaming busy streets and intersections all by himself. Smith’s (which isn’t the grocery store I was at) is easily 2 miles from my house and there are several intersections in which Brody would have crossed traffic ALONE! I panicked. The biggest fear, of course, is someone taking him. I kept running it through my head that he can get hit (okay, maybe just bumped) by a car all he wants… break a leg… break an arm… I can handle that. Just don’t let someone TAKE HIM!
I called the police the moment I sprinted out of the grocery store. I frantically asked for whoever was patrolling the neighborhood to just have a look out for a little baby boy on a tiny red bike riding all by himself.
As I drove from the grocery store that I was at to the other store that Brody was allegedly barreling towards, I see a little tiny dude and a little tiny red bike being held by a crossing guard. Bless that man!! I was still on the phone with the police dispatch, and I yelled, I found him, I found him, but I don’t know if I ever even hung up my phone. Brody was wriggling like a worm on a hook trying to break free. My car tires screeched around the corner and I stopped… likely in the middle of the road. BRODY FROZE. I ran to the crossing guard, tears streaming, and swooped him up. I checked his body for marks, made sure he was safe, held him long enough for him to know that his safety was my main concern… and then the switch flipped, and I got MAD.
The mother-scolding began, and you wanna know what that little punk kid did… HE YELLED BACK AT ME! He was pissed that I wouldn’t take him to the store. He yelled that it was my fault because if I had just taken him to the store then he wouldn’t have had to run away!!! My mother-blood boiled. I put him into his car seat knowing that I had to get out of there because if these people saw me lose it on my 4 year old after he had just RAN AWAY from my house… child protective services would be BANGING down my door.
We got back home, and within the 2 mile car ride Brody’s swagger wavered drastically. He knew he was in trouble. We stepped out onto our driveway when suddenly three police cars came zooming down our street.
I pushed Brody’s little back towards the middle of the driveway, and told him that those police officers were here for HIM, not me.
Hopefully, this is my little runaway’s last encounter with the police, but I have a feeling that this is jussssst the beginning.
