Let me tell you a little bit about Sam. He is 4 years old, the son of Ben and Heidi Dimick and first Dimick grandchild. He has had some developmental problems, which mostly affect his speech so far. He started talking later than he should have and when he did, it sure was not in English. We're still trying to decide if it's German or Vietnamese. For example, he calls his aunt Christy and uncle Scott "Pussys" and "Bot". I don't know exactly where he gets that first one from. He is just the most adorable little thing and we would all do anything for him. Another one of his problems is that he is very OCD. When he goes to my parents' house he goes straight to his trains (his favorite thing in the world) and sets them all up. If you even think of moving anything out of its place he completely loses it. He has had some testing done and they have gone back and forth between blaming his speech problems on autism and chronic ear infections. He has been having speech therapy for a year or so now and is doing well. At this stage we don't know exactly what is going on with him but we do know that we wouldn't have him any other way!
This is his school photo from last year. Cute, huh?
Another of his quirks is that as soon as he walks into someone's house he promptly removes all of his clothes. The first time he came to mine and Scott's new home he didn't even think about it, just ripped everything off. He also really loves the kitties and likes to talk to them. Here's some awesome shots of both of these things.
So back to text messaging on my lunch break. I said, "WHAT? No, I did not know this." Melissa went on to tell me that he had been missing for about an hour and that he came home from school and disappeared shortly after, that the whole family was at their house looking for him and freaking out, that the police were looking for him and that they were about to call in some blood hounds. I started to freak out when my sister texted me again and told me they found him. Apparently the bus driver took Sam home and he ran inside and said hi to his daddy. The bus driver came to the door to make sure his parents were there and didn't see Ben, who had gone back into the back room and couldn't hear the bus driver, and upon seeing that Samuel was apparently home alone, told him to go back on the bus. So while everyone was going out of their minds and all of Orange County was looking for him, Samuel was having a nice ride on the bus taking all the other kids home.
The bus driver did the right thing since he is supposed to see the parents in order to drop the kids off, and I keep thinking about what that poor guy thought when he pulled up to the house and saw all that mayhem.
Now, the best part of this story is how our other sister, Katie, found out. If you think that it's bad that I found out an hour later through a text message, wait til you hear this. Katie arrived home and saw that there were no cars in front of the Dimick house, which was weird because there are 7 cars that live there and SOMEONE is always home. But, the door was unlocked and the TV was on, so she figured someone was home in some part of the house. What really had happened was that they had gotten the call and everyone ran out of the house so fast that they left the TV on and the front door totally unlocked. The phone rang a few minutes later and Katie answered it, noticing that the caller ID said Westminster PD. It was a recording that went something like this:
"Attention Westminster residents, there is a 4 year old boy missing...
That is slightly autistic...
And can't carry on a conversation...
Wearing a train t-shirt..."
Hmmm, wonder who that could be?
All that matters now, is our Samuel is safe and he doesn't even know anything happened! When he got off the bus he kept saying, "Why you sad mommy? Don't cry."
It just makes you remember to appreciate your family a little more. And maybe update each other on important stuff.
1 comment:
Wow! That would be soooooooo scary...I know when we lost Steve at Knott's Berry Farm it was really scary. So glad it all turned out o.k.!!!! What a story!!!
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