Rakai and Karamea...yep both of them tried to run away from home...when they were like 2 or something.
Rakai
We were fixing up the house at 258 Main Street in Salt Lake and getting ready to move into it. I was vacuuming with the really loud wet vac. Dad came in and said he was going to pick up some supplies and then he left. I finished what I was doing and turned off the vacuum. It was unusually quiet. I wandered around the house yelling for Rakai. There was no response. I went out in the unfenced yard and looked around. He was no where. We had not moved into the house yet. I didn't know any of the neighbors. This was a very unfamiliar place. I went out into the street frantically running up and down. I couldn't find him anywhere. There were no cell phones back then and I didn't have car because dad had taken it to the store. I was stranded in this place and didn't know where my son was. Maybe 20 minutes later I get a knock on the door. I ran and there stood Rakai hand in hand with a stranger. "Is this your little boy?"
As it turns out, Rakai wanted to go with his dad to the store. Ra drove off and Rakai tried to chase him down. He wandered off too far and couldn't remember how to get back home. It is not normal for a little two year old boy to be wandering the streets alone. The kind stranger saw him and took the time to walk around the neighborhood with him. Rakai was returned home safely.
Karamea
She tried to runaway twice when we lived at that same house. One time I was is the kitchen doing breakfast dishes. There was a beautiful view of the street from the big kitchen windows. I looked down and saw a little girl standing in the middle of the road wearing pink slipper pajamas. What the heck? That's not just any little girl...that's my little girl. I dropped the dish turned off the water and ran out the door and down the road. By that time a person who had driven by stopped and went over to rescue her. Karamea had climbed out of her bed and taken off down the road without even coming in to say good morning to her mother.
On another occasion...three year old Rakai who heard the siren of a fire truck and he knew it was close by. He ran up to see what all the commotion was. I did not know this and I didn't even know he was missing...untiiilll...a knock at the door and there stands a fireman with Rakai in his arms. I look beyond the their bodies and notice that the fire truck is parked almost in my drive and starring back at me is a truck full of firemen. Humiliating to say the least. Apparently they saw "the lone boy" standing there and decided that wasn't safe. They picked him up and put him in the truck. When they were finished with the call he showed them the way back to the house.
And then there's Asa
He ran away twice...that I can remember.
He was two the first time he ran away. He didn't actually know he was running away. He was pushing his Tonka dump truck on the road and he was just looking down while he was pushing. This was when we lived on Los Padres. He pushed the truck up to Escalante, turned right, kept going, crossed Tonaquint and looked up. He had no idea where he was. Luckily he was still in the boundaries of the ward and some people in our ward looked out their window and saw him. They went out and got him and brought him into the house then they called us. When I went over to get him he was sitting at the kitchen counter eating french toast with his nursery friend Alicia.
Another time he ran away because he was angry. I think he was 5 or something. He packed up a lunch and some toys in his backpack and off he went. He came back eventually...probably when he ran out of food.
