Burned.

Just your typical Monday morning around here.  Dylan is toddling around with toys and Michael just finishes a late morning airway clearance treatment.  I decide to start to make an early lunch for the boys...  quite a simple task since I have done it a thousand times before.  It's the not the lunch I would soon become concerned with as the minutes pass.

Two pieces of whole wheat bread.  Not processed on equipment or in a facility with peanuts or treenuts.  I grab the tub of olive oil butter and slather an obscene amount on one side of each of the bread.  Grilled cheese is on the menu.  A couple slices of Kraft singles and extra butter, chips and a big bowl of french onion dip for each kid.  The hiss of the buttered bread hitting the pan is reassuring.

Michael calls for me to help in the potty.  I help get cleaned up and we discuss what I am making him for lunch.  Next, we wash our hands, exit the powder room and head up the stairs so he can get dressed and ditch his pull-up for more comfy cotton underwear.  He has been psyched for the past week because he is wearing "boker bweefs".  Translation, boxer briefs.

Michael demands that I layout all 4 of his clean boxer brief underwear so he can decide.  He abruptly shoves two pair at me that he has eliminated as options (as they are not the new dinosaur ones he just picked out this weekend).  "Hmm, mommy, which one you like?  The blue and yellow or the other pair?"  I try to indulge him but I am hurrying to simply get some drawers on this kid.  Finally, he makes a decision and I quickly yank a pair of Adidas warm up pants out of his closet and help him get them on.

As I walk out of Michael's room, I smell something burning.  THE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH!  I head down the foyer stairs in an all out sprint.  I arrive at the stove top to see the sandwich smoking.  I flip once to see if the damage is irreparable.  I have done wonders with a little char on a grilled cheese sandwich.  I immediately shift to Grilled Cheese ER doctor mode.  I flip the burner off and peel back the charred piece of bread.  Assessing the situation, I pull the entire burnt slice of bread off.  I quickly throw another cheese slice on and add a freshly buttered piece of wheat bread where the missing half had been.  Then, click click click, poof, I turn the burner back on.  Good as new.  Sigh.  I flip the fresh piece of bread to toast on the bottom of the pan, and see the other side is golden brown.  Perfect.

I tell Michael to go get his brother for lunch.  As I am readying their plates, I hear Michael as he approaches the top of the basement stairs, "Mommy, Dy dy not downstairs.  The wights are all off."

What?  The lights are all off?  That's weird, he was just playing in the family room and I was certain that he headed down to the basement.  Although, it is awfully quiet.  And it's never good when it's too quiet, especially with Dylan.  I turn the burner off on the stove top, not willing to risk another destroyed sandwich.  Then, I swiftly retrace down the stairs where Michael had just been.  He's right.  All the lights are in fact turned off.  No signs of caveman Dylan.  No pillows from the couches on the floor.  No sports equipment strewn all over.  There aren't even any toys out.  Nothing.  No sounds.  Nada.

Humph.  I hurry upstairs since I don't want their food to get cold.  So strange, I think.  I start calling for Dylan.  There are no reciprocal giggles or noises anywhere in the house.  I walk every room of the first floor.  He is not anywhere to be found.

I run upstairs and hurriedly glance in each room.  This is just not possible.  How does a mother lose her kid inside their home?!  I head back to the first floor and do a look around the door locks and it appears that all are still deadbolted.  I realize that with Dylan this doesn't mean too much considering at 13 months he had pulled a laundry basket over to a door, flipped it over, climbed up onto it and unlocked a door. 

There was also the time he walked out the door and I found him 3 houses down the street when he was 18 months old.  I have also had to rescue him from under our SUV (it was not running, I'll have you know that I am not that terrible of a mother), inside the kids' art easel, and inside a compartment of the refrigerator.  You think I am joking.  I am not.

He is a monkey who gets into everything and an adventurous little explorer.  This time feels terrifying and different.

My heart races.  Panic creeps in.  Dylan is gone.  GONE.  GONE.  GONE.

I really start to lose it.  I dash from each room to the next, top of our house to the bottom, yelling for Dylan.  I check each closet and every hiding place that he has.  I pull back every curtain and look under every bed.   Michael is chasing behind me and wailing with concern.  He loudly repeats every single word out of my my mouth, right along with me.  To say he was my shadow at that moment is a complete understatement.  As if that isn't bad enough, the dog is running around barking her head off like she is some sort of in-house amber alert.  To assess the situation, I don't need a mirror.  I am staring at a kid version and a canine version of my panic.

I finally melt down as I head back into the basement.  I flip on every light and scream at the top of my lungs for Dylan to respond to me with hysteria taking over.  I open our storage rooms and look around.  I cannot contain my nervousness.  He is not anywhere I can see.  My stomach drops.

I switch on every light in the basement and head to the basement bathroom.  As I flip on the light in the bathroom, there is a mild commotion behind me.  I see Dylan pop up from a comfortable spot on the sofa.  His hair is messy and matted and his cheeks are rosy.  He is completely disheveled.  His eyes are dark and groggy.  I make my way over to him and walk around the couch, hysterically crying and laughing at the same time.

Michael says, "Oh, Dy dy you 'cared us.  You weally 'cared us."  Tears are flowing down Michael's cheeks and his red eyes are pools of tears.  He is trying to catch his breath he is sobbing so hard, that his baby brother was missing.  Well, at least for 7 minutes.

I look at Dylan's position and realize that he had taken a throw from the sofas upstairs and brought it downstairs probably to play.  I am guessing that when he arrived in a dark basement, he made himself cozy in a nook of the couch.  He has been hidden by the blanket and two throw pillows.  He was just taking a snooze.

We all hug firmly as the dog rubs her face on our torsos.  We are all safe.  Our worst fears that Dylan had wandered off out of the house or that something menacing had happened to him are eased.

Dylan, clearly not understanding what had just transpired, laughs brightly and yells "Wipe out!" and throws himself onto the neighboring massive armchair.  Michael and I sit holding each other crying and letting our racing hearts slow together.

All through out lunch, Michael lectures me on the importance of not going with strangers.  He wags his finger with an air of seriousness as he tells me his advice.  It is obvious he is shaken up from the ordeal.  Dylan just eats as if it is just a typical Monday lunch.

I often wish for peace.  Or silence.  Maybe a break from the storms of insanity that pass through my days.  But I definitely peered into a small window of the unknown and heartache today.  I felt a moment of every parent's worst nightmare of missing their child even if only for a few minutes.  In a mall.  In a restaurant.  In a parking lot.  Or as ridiculous as it sounds...  in your own home.

Today, I realized that I'll take my active little Dylan yelling and vocalizing his two-year-old emotions any time over his silence.