Babies Cry and Doggies Hide

Mistakes are common. Like I’m talking super common and I make them all the time. Which, sure may not be surprising to anyone who knows me. But I do take pride in being pretty good at a lot of the things I do. I want to talk about a time when I made a mistake and it freaked me out. I was really tired after a day of school and drama work so I decided to take a nap. A pretty normal thing for a pooped teenager to do. But what I forgot was that my mother had to go to work. My father was already at work and I was the only one home. What I forgot was my mother was leaving me home with my little brother. After a little bit, I woke up from my nap, confused and disoriented, but one thing I could make out was a baby crying.

I got up as fast as possible and booked it for my baby brother and found him, sitting on the ground, with the front door wide open. For some context, we had two dogs at the time and they loved to go outside. I scooped Lil L up and while, he wasn’t hurt, the house was a mess and now I had two dogs on the loose and to my current knowledge, no one home. I walked outside, barefoot, with just an oversized sweatshirt, tank top, and, pajama bottoms on. Putting Lil L in his stroller, I had thrown my sweatshirt over him and started down the hill. I was panicked and disoriented, I mean I thought I was screwed, and knowing myself I just became a sobbing mess. Which, fun fact, when you have a crying baby, and a crying teenager on top of that it isn’t a fun combo. So were walking for about twenty minutes. I’m yelling for my dogs, and finally, up ahead, I see a blonde, tall, skinny boy who looked exactly like my brother Big L. I thought I was crazy for a minute but then I heard him yell out for the dogs. Big L had been home this entire time. I sigh and run up to him. He’s also crying and he has a bloody nose. He had tripped while running.

Shortly after we found the dogs and brought them both home. I and Big L picked up the house, put Lil L down for a nap, and made sure the dogs were all in the house. Needless to say, I made a big mistake that afternoon. It was all sorted out and everyone was okay, but that never should have happened in the first place. Lil L could’ve gotten seriously hurt and I don’t even know what I would’ve done with myself had I been the reason that happened. I told my mom what happened a few weeks later and she was a little mortified, to say the least. I’m not allowed to watch Lil L alone anymore and now I have a huge fear of napping after school but, I think it helped me grow and learn. Even though I did some dumb things (like, walking down a rocky hilly with no shoes on in the cold) I still kept my head on during all of it. I made sure the house got cleaned, the dogs and baby were both safe, and, that Big L and I didn’t get our butts kicked. I know now that if mom tells me I need to do something after school, I drink an energy drink and put a reminder in my phone so I don’t forget. But overall, the moral of the story here is that I’m still a good kid. Even though I made a mistake. Mistakes help us grow.

Featured Image; “open door policy” by emdot is licensed under CC BY 2.0.