He was gone.

He wasn’t in the backyard where I’d left him to play, five minutes before.

“Mama, I go pet the chickens, pwease? I be really nice to them.  Pwease?”

“Your brother is in the middle of trying to go down for a nap,” I had said, over the cries drifting in over the baby monitor.  “You know – the nap he needs because you went into his room at six in the morning and woke him up?”

DragonMonkey hung his head in feigned embarassment for the prescribed amount of time, then repeated, “I go be nice to chickens, please?  I not chase them.  Please?”

“Fine,” I had with a sigh, wincing at the indignant shrieks coming over the monitor.

I had led him down the stairs to the side yard, closing the gate behind him with a final admonishment.  “I need to stay inside until Squid settles down – you are NOT to chase the chickens, and you are NOT to open this gate.  If you need anything, just call me. I can hear you from the living room.”

“Yes, Mama,” he said obediently, edging towards the chicken with a predatory sidle.

I was going to pretend I didn’t see that.  It was only 10:30 in the morning, but I was already going to pretend I didn’t see that.

Five minutes later, Squid’s “I-don’t-need-no-stinking-nap” howls slowly wound down, and he dropped off to sleep.  I’d glanced out the living room window a couple of times during my wait, watching Matty as he did his best to refrain from running, following the chickens around with a tortilla chip in his hand, trying to force them to eat it.  This time, however, I couldn’t see him.

The chickens (Martha Stewart, Moaning Myrtle, and Tanesha) were pecking slowly around the yard, relaxed.

Where was he?

I slipped on my sandles and headed down to the side yard. 

He wasn’t there.

“DragonMonkey?” I called.

Silence greeted me.

Maybe he’d slipped past me to go to the bathroom?  I went back up the stairs and into the house, looking in both bathrooms.

He wasn’t in the bathroom.

He wasn’t in the living room.

He wasn’t in the playroom, or his bedroom, or my bedroom.  He wasn’t in the laundry room.

He wasn’t in the basement.

I checked the yard again, going as far as to look inside the chicken coop.

Nothing.

“DragonMonkey?!”  My voice was taking on a shrill, frantic tone.  This wasn’t funny.  This wasn’t funny at all.

I dashed back into my house, exchanging my sandles for tennis shoes I slipped hastily over my bare feet.

I jogged to the end of the drive, calling for him.  “DragonMonkey?  DRAGONMONKEY?!”

Silence.

I ran back up the drive, and did a circle around the house.  “DRAGONMONKEY?!”

Silence.

I noticed that the gate from our yard to the field was ajar, and gave an angry sigh.  Had he gone up there without my permission?  I was going to let him have it when I found him up there.  I jogged up the hill, ignoring the burn in my calves, and out into the open field.

I was greeted by the sight of long, waving yellow grass, a couple of buzzing flies, but no three-year-old. 

“DRAGONMONKEY?!”  The sound of my own voice, thin with fear, ratcheted my heart rate up even more.  “”DRAGONMONKEY!  ANSWER ME!  RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!”

Nothing.  I saw nothing, I heard nothing.

Forget fear.  I was past fear.  What I was feeling was raw terror – every mother’s worst nightmare slowly unfolding in front of me.

Twenty minutes, y’all.

Twenty minutes is how long I looked for him, called for him.

I should have called the police after the first ten minutes, but I didn’t want to stop long enough to find my cell phone.

It was the longest twenty minutes of my life.

Finally, FINALLY, I heard him answer.

“Over here, Mama!” he called cheerfully from several houses down, thin legs scratched from the brush as he made his way down a hillside.  “I go mountain climbing up, now I going mountain climbing down!”  His voice was tiny and faint from hundreds of yards away, but I nearly sagged with relief when I heard it.

“GET OVER HERE, DRAGONMONKEY!  YOU’RE IN BIG TROUBLE!”

I’ll fast forward past how tightly I hugged him to me when I finally pulled him into our yard.  I’ll fast forward past the lecture I gave him in a shaking voice, and the way he sensed my genuine fear.  I’ll shoot right past the way I lied to him about “Great Big Evil MonkeyMen” who lurk in the shadows of the hillsides around our house, hoping to terrify him into never doing it again, even if it means he’ll have nightmares until he is thirty.  I’ll fast forward past me dragging him back in the house and telling him he was never allowed outside by himself, never,  ever, ever again.

I’ll fast forward to about five minutes later, where I sat on the couch, still shaking, trying to let go of the adrenaline still coursing in my veins.  DragonMonkey was safely hidden in my bathroom, using the toilet. 

I could have lost him.  He could have walked into the street, or stumbled into traffic.  He could have been snatched up.  He could have tripped, and fallen into a creek and drowned.  I was lucky.  I was damned lucky.  I was…

CRASH!

I was really mad. 

He was supposed to be going poo.  The last time I checked, going poo didn’t involve the crash-boom-bang of solid objects flying around the bathroom.

Stomping down the hallway, I threw open the door to the bathroom.  The DragonMonkey stood there, pantsless, standing ankle deep in a pile of unwravelled dental floss.  At the sound of the door hitting the wall, he jumped, forgetting to hide the can of hairspray behind his back.

“What are you doing?!”

He raised the now-empty can up, guiltily, and gestured at the bathroom. “I spway the bathroom.”

“You what?” 

“I spway the bathroom.”  He held it up, and gestured at the countertop, depressing the button which made a faint spluttering noise.  “Like this.”

“STOP THAT!” I said, grabbing the canister out of his hand and setting it down on the now-sticky countertop….which matched the sticky toilet, the sticky floor, and the sticky tub.  The entire bathroom was covered in a tacky, greasy “All-day, Natural Hold!” film.

I stared at him for a moment, taking in the mess, and the dental floss, and his half-naked self, and tried to count to ten.

Next time.

I swear, if he ever runs away from home again, next time I’m not going to look for him quite so hard.

Step 1:  Go on Pinterest

Wow, look at that!  Look at all those really cool Do-It-Yourself projects!  You mean all you have to do is take an old desk/ pallet/ bookcase/ toilet paper roll/ etc and add a few nails and pieces of scrap wood, and you can renovate it into a beautiful new chicken coop?

Really?

Wow, that looks easy!  You can do that, too!

Huh?  What’s that?  What kind of design do you want your chicken coop to have you’re done?

Eh, you’ll figure it out later, when you get to that point.

Step 2:  Find something old, left behind by the old house owner.

This is going to be the raddest chicken coop ever.

Step 3:  Slowly and carefully move chicken-coop-in-the-making to the construction area.

Step 4: After several minutes of straining, realize it’s too heavy to lift on your own, and that you will have to wait for the husband to come home and help you move it.

Step 5:  Sulk for a few minutes about the fact that you were born a female, and that instead of having broad shoulders and big biceps that can lift heavy things, you have wide hips, a big butt, and the ability to experience “morning” sickness.  Yes, Mother Nature.  That’s just SO much better.

Step 6:  Get angry.  Decide to move it anyways.  Carefully maneuver desk-coop-thingie end-over-end down a rocky slope into the backyard.  Arrive at the bottom without a single mishap.  Cheer inwardly.  Perhaps cheer outwardly, too.

Step 7:  Heave desk-coop-thingie over the four foot chain link fence (the gate is too far away to reach) through sheer will power, making grunting and straining very feminine and sexy noises. 

Step 8:  Watch in horror as the last teensy tip of the desk catches on the top of the fence, wrenches sideways out of your grasp, and falls the last two feet, breaking in several places.

Step 9:  Teach your three-year-old and one-year-old several new and very passionate vocabulary words that are not Sesame Street approved.

Step 10:  Get to work.

Take lots of photos of your progress, so you can do a blog post later on about how totally awesome and capable you are.

Pop Quiz:  What’s more difficult than trying to build something with no plans, no previous carpentry experience, no real materials, and no actual mechanical abilities? 

Answer:  Trying to do all of the above with children.

Nails and hammers and saws really aren’t a good mix with toddlers and preschoolers.  The DragonMonkey and Squid are hard enough to keep alive on a normal basis.  Trying to chase after them while simultaneously “building” a chicken coop nearly drove me crazy.

Still, I wanted chickens, and to get chickens I needed a coop, so there was no turning back.

I nailed.  I stapled.  I sawed. I screwed things in.

I looked at my “chicken coop” and sighed.

I unscrewed things.  I unnailed things.  I plucked out staples, and started all over again, when things weren’t working well.

Rinse, repeat.

Rinse, repeat.

After three days (yes, three), this is what I had:

Yeah. 

I know.

At that point I did what every mature, modern, and independent woman does:

I threw in the towel and called Santa.

Santa, otherwise known as my stepdad (he really does have a thriving career as a real-bearded Santa), is to wood what J.R.R. Tolkien is to fantasy writing. 

The original plan was that I would be the one building it,  and he would teach me.

It worked like that at first – he explained, I understood and nodded, and together we worked on it, while my mom made it possible by watching the boys.

It was a nice theory, but as things grew more complex, it turned into him saying a bunch of words, me nodding like I understood, and then blindly following his instructions.

I really don’t see professional carpentry in my immediate future.

Three building sessions later, I had this:

Yeah.

I know.

Pretty awesome, huh?

Even better, we build the thing entirely out of old pallets and wood that the previous owner left behind.  The only money we spent was on some extra screws and a couple of 2 x 4s we used to brace the roof.

When it’s time for the chickens to go to sleep, the ramp comes off, and the door comes down, and it locks up safe and secure.

When it comes time to clean it out, the whole front opens up, making the process nice and easy.

 

 

Her name is Martha Stewart.

The other two haven’t really named themselves yet (does anyone have any suggestions?)  The DragonMonkey is suggesting “Mommy” for the other Golden Sex Link (snicker), but I think I’m going to feel a little awkward standing in my backyard saying, “Heeeeere, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” for the whole world to hear.