Marching On - Part III

Let's talk cookies. Cookies R-U-L-E.  My offspring are genetically predisposed to be cookie monsters because I am one.  Chocoholism, according to my grandmother, runs in the family for countless generations, maybe as far back as cavemen.  Nowadays, failure to put a cookie in a school lunch will cause irreparable lunch bag letdown. After all, cookies are the perfect food. A cookie with coffee, a cookie after lunch, a cookie when you're feeling blue, a cookie when you’re feeling happy, a cookie when no one's looking, a cookie just because. We. Bake. A. Lot. Of. Cookies.

By the time Gillian was four, she learned that the neighborhood grocery store, located conveniently three blocks away, also bakes cookies. But not the palm-sized homemade-by-mommy variety. We're talking about cookies the size of her entire head, smothered in chocolate frosting and adorned with colorful sprinkles, wrapped up and lined up near the check-out stand.

The March was born.

On those rare occasions where Gillian would find an unmanned escape route, she’d march immediately down the hill and take a sharp right at the corner, headed towards the store, cookies on the brain.  For the next three years, her primary goal was to march far enough, unnoticed, to reach for a monster cookie.  Lucky for us, she is not fast.  No matter how quickly she got those little arms and legs a swingin', she would be caught and re-directed before reaching her destination.  In the meanwhile, we upped the parental-radar level to the red zone.  We notified neighbors, installed locks and gadgets galore, and even added several layers of chicken wire around our already-fenced property – just in case.   

What, you may be wondering, was school like?  The Kindergarten years (K-garten was SO much fun, we let her do that twice!) were nail-biters:  While Gillian did not demonstrate The March on school grounds, her uncanny knack for disappearing kept staff on their toes.  By the end of the Kindergarten years, Gillian outgrew wanderlust, or so it seemed, and we let down our guards accordingly and thanked our lucky stars.  Suddenly, at the end of first grade last year, Marching began again with a vengeance.  Only, I learned of it after-the-fact.

One day while sitting at my desk at Superior Court, a customer stood at the front counter, offering various concerns with various public entities.  Then he turned to public schools.  “… blah … blah … teachers …”  I half-listened.  “… blah… blah… safety…”  My ears perked up a little.   “… blah …. blah… And the other day, I was passing by the grade school, and a little girl with Down Syndrome was marching down the street like she was on a mission.  So I looked around, and no one was following her.  I wondered if she had just escaped from the school there, so I took her back there …”  By now I was standing up.  “Did she have blonde hair, a pony-tail, and hot-pink glasses?”  Imagine that:  she did.  A call to the school confirmed that Gillian had indeed escaped – from the principal’s office!  Which is where she’d been sent after trying to escape from the recess-aide.  Which she’d been doing regularly, apparently …

Alarmed, I phoned the YMCA, her after-school program:  “Has Gillian been trying to escape?”  “Well, we’ve been meaning to talk to you about that …” 

I began to get nervous.  Chicken wire would not eliminate this problem.  These days, Gillian could operate wire cutters and dig holes if she was so inclined. I got online and looked up key words  “wandering, Down Syndrome” and immediately STOPPED, as I was turning up some frightful and tragic results. 

That very week, Gillian succeeded in making her first clean Cookie Escape.

 (Okay, no doubt you are tiring of this story.  But this busy ma-ma has run out of time.  To be continued – and FINISHED – very soon.)  J