Hatrack River Forum: Parental Nightmare

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Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :

From the local paper:

quote:
Posted: May 20, 2007
A Glendale woman was in the parking lot of the Pick 'n Save store at 6969 N. Port Washington Road on May 10 when she noticed a baby left alone in a shopping cart and called police. It was 5:20 p.m.

Around the same time, a 40-year-old Whitefish Bay woman called 911 after she realized she'd forgotten her baby at the store.

The mother told police she was rushing to pick up another child from day care and forgot to put her baby into the car after she loaded her groceries.

The 911 operator told her the baby was safe with Glendale police.

The woman told police she had not been getting enough sleep since the birth of her baby. She was urged to get more rest and might consider adding one more item to her grocery checklist.

[edit to fix crappy pasting]

Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :

Yeah, that was definitely one of my big nightmares all right. I still remember a particularly vivid dream that I left my baby in a stroller to go back to the house for something and got distracted and forgot about him for hours. Remembering that dream still gives me chicken skin, and that "baby" graduated from college last month. [Angst]

Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :

There was a person near where we lived who had 13 kids. She left her youngest, which was an infant, in her car and it overheated and died. It was really sad because afterwards people were antagonizing her because she had so many kids and because she was such a conservative Christian.

Posted by Artemisia Tridentata (Member # 8746) on :

We had friends over one evening, who had (yours, mine and ours) eight kids. They went home, sent the kids to bed and retired for the night. Aprox 1:00 AM, something promped them to check, and one bed was empty. They called us, and we did a check. The missing offender was playing quietly in our basement playroom. She hadn't been missed, and was enjoying the chance to play with a new set of toys, without the usual competition. Mom and Dad were a little embarrased after the shock wore off.

Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :

One hot summer day, when I worked at Circuit City, a guy came in and wanted to ask a couple of quick questions. Well, that turned into an effort, on my part, to sell him a laptop. [Smile]

After about 30-45 minutes of talking, he suddenly said he needed to go, but he would probably be right back. Well, it turns out he'd left his (grand?)kid in the SUV out front, and someone saw the situation and called police.

I watched them cuff him and put him in the car...wondering idly if I'd missed any clues...The kid was fine, for the record.

Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :

That is always a favorite fear of mine. I tend to worry about alot of things, but when I'm out with a group of kids, I'm one of those people who does OBSESSIVE head counts.

I think it came from growing up in a big family with lots of cousins around. My parents were alwasy losing one of us because it is hard to keep a big group together at an outing. I also always hated when my mother would drop me off at an activity and come back to pick me up, because about a quarter of the time she'd forget to come back. It really is hard with that many kids to notice, without counting, if you have all of them. So... I grew into an obsessive head counter.

When I was teaching a saturday program, my kids used to hate it because I'd always be counting them under my breath, even when just walking around campus. It saved me a couple of times though when I'd take my little brothers and cousins to museums, parks, or shopping. Inevitably one of them would get really interested in something, and the rest of the group would be moving off, and I'd count and be one short, and have to go back to find the offender.

These days I only have the one kid, my son, so it's alot easier. Still, I am scared that one day I'll get up and be running around late for work, and just forget to get him up. I HAVE forgotten to drop him off at daycare a couple of times. That's a real problem, because the daycare is near where we live, and I work almost an hour away from it. I'll just get into the zone, and forget to stop at the daycare (it's on the way) and then be almost to work, and he'll make a noise, or say something. It's REALY embarassing when you have to call your boss and say "yeah, I'm gunna be about two hours late because I forgot to leave my kid behind".