means of escape

Logistically, things are always a little more complicated with twins. And trying to get us all into the car A) within a reasonable amount of time, B) without me pulling out my hair and C) forgetting something either beside the car or leaving it on the roof is sometimes challenging. As with most of what I do with the niblets, I take turns on who gets loaded into the car first. It was Logan’s turn. And he’s the one I usually have to worry about. He recently learned the age-old pelvic thrust maneuver he performs to the sounds of shrieks and screams whenever he doesn’t want to go in the car.

I don’t know where he picked this up. It’s not like he watches other kids get into the car thinking, “Wow. I should be doing that!’ So it must be toddler instinct. Much like tossing full plates of ravioli onto the just-mopped floor or insisting that only wearing one shoe is really the way to go.

So here I am at the park at nine in the morning amidst the svelte joggers, the dog walkers and the moms taking their kids to summer sports camp with a deceptively innocent-looking boy screaming at the top of his lungs and turning limp as an egg noodle as he slides down onto the floorboards. His face is super red from the screaming and mine is almost the same color from embarrassment. During all of this Lily is happy as can be sitting patiently in her side of the busted-up double jogging stroller.

Or at least that’s what I thought because I hadn’t heard a peep from her.

By the time I had safely buckled Logan, my arm muscles throbbing from exertion, and turn to the stroller, I realize it’s not there. I put the brake on right? I always put the brake on. But I’m also crazed most of the time. So I can’t even believe myself. Plus the brake sometimes pops right back up and I don’t notice if I’m not paying attention.

Immediately I’m panicking. I let my daughter roll away. Was she hit by a soccer mom pulling into the lot too busy paying attention to her own children to notice mine? (My first thought.) Was she snatched up by some park perv who would sell her to the highest bidder because of her unparalled adorableness? (My second thought.) The parking lot isn’t exactly Times Square but neither is it as empty as a Dairy Queen in January. Someone is always pulling in or out.

And although it felt like time was moving in one of those movie slow mo sequences during a sports scene where the voices get all drawn out, deep and wonky sounding, it really was just a couple seconds before I spied her. Five parking spots away leaning up against an SUV that had thankfully stopped her from rolling right on into the street.

I rushed over, my head a bubbling cauldron full of mixed emotions. Thanking the universe for her safety. Hating my own negligence. And hoping no one else witnessed what could have possible ended up very very differently.  Lily, being who she is, was completely happy to be rolling away on her own adventure. She was smiling, playing with her shoes and had no idea how much she had freaked me out. Or why I was clutching her to my chest and squeezing her so tightly.

Needless to say, getting into the car takes even longer now because I have to stop every five seconds to make sure the other twin is hasn’t rolled away again.

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