This morning at 6:47 am I was awaken by a hysterical Linda. She came running into our room and she said, "Damien is not here." Less than half awake I said, "What? Where is he?" She then told me in a panic that he was not in his bed, he was not in the living room and he was not anywhere in the condo to be found. She then told me that the door to the condo was unlocked.
As soon as I heard this I quickly sprung out of bed and did a frantic search of the house to make sure that Linda did not over look anything. First I checked Damien and Liam's room. When I went into the room all I saw was Liam standing in his crib yelling the usual, "Mamma, Mamma, Mamma, Mamma." We had no time for him, Damien was gone. I went into Alicia's room and she was awake and singing, but no time for here either. We checked the kitchen, bathrooms, and balcony and it became terrifying apparent that Damien had either let himself out of the apartment or even worse he had been kidnapped.
By this time Linda was screaming and crying, "Damien! Damien!" I was trying to gather my thoughts and act fast at the same time. I tried to piece together all of the information as quickly as I could in my head. Usually when he wakes up he either comes into our bed and snuggles for a little before we get up, or he wakes Liam up and they yell together until one of us gets up and takes care of them. Damien leaving the apartment was so out of character for him. The thing is that recently he has unlocked the door and run out into the entrance. Yesterday he had been at Matt and Maria's house up the street, maybe he ran there I thought.
Linda and I split up without really talking during our frantic search for Damien. Linda ran up all seven floors of our apartment building crying out for Damien. I meanwhile ran outside and checked the big roads, to make sure he was not there. I then proceeded to look for him around the whole complex.
When I got back to the condo Linda was still hysterical, she said that she couldn't find him. Obviously we were both really worried. It had been about ten minutes and our primary search did not show us any signs of Damien's whereabouts. I told Linda to stay in the condo and call the police. I meanwhile was going to call Matt and tell him to meet me on the way to his place so we could see if Damien was on the way there. This whole time Liam was getting more and more impatient, so as Linda was ringing the police she went to calm Liam in his crib. All of a sudden the covers under Liam started to move and Linda saw a mischievous smile staring back at her. It was Damien! Linda grabbed him and hugged him like he had just been born. Linda wailed as she kissed and hugged Damien. After our time of hugs and kisses we pieced everything together. The little prankster had hopped into Liam's crib before Linda woke up an hid under the covers in Liam's crib for 10 minutes without saying a word. Liam might seem cute as well, but he must have been the little accomplice by not ratting out his brother. The last part of the mystery about why the door was unlocked was simple. We must have forgot to lock the door when Mormor Carina left the apartment last night. We usually double check the lock when we go to bed, but we both were exhausted last night and we fell asleep on the couch.
Talk about a sense of relief this morning, we went from feeling like we were going to die, to feeling like we won the lottery.
Lately I have been trying to be appreciative of what I have in life. I am grateful for things that I have and for certain things not happening to me. No matter how bad something may seem in life you have to pick out what is good and dwell on that. It is really hard to do, but I am trying. I do not want to wait until something goes wrong for me to appreciate what I used to have. I should be grateful for things that I take for granted like having two arms, or not having a serious illness, or having three beautiful babies. It is a better way of living to focus and appreciate what we have now rather than think about what we do not have, or how things used to be. If you do not appreciate what you have now, you will appreciate it when it is taken away from you and then it is just a memory.
The second thing this whole experience taught us is that we need chain locks on the front door. Well we just got back from Baus Hus (Home Depot) with new chain locks for the doors. Lesson learned!
