it's official: i have embarrassed myself again

Yesterday after school Miles didn't come home. I started to get nervous, so I got in Shene's truck and went looking through the neighborhood and went to the school playground and looked and called his name. In my drama filled mind there were tumbleweeds blowing by, that's how desolate the streets and school grounds were. No kid in sight. So, I try not to panic and I mentally kick myself for not bringing my cell phone. I start back home (a different way, continuing to look on the streets and in yards). When I get home, Ben is home from work. I don't bother trying to park correctly and run into the house. I crazily ask Ben if Miles is home while running through the entry and mud room looking for signs of coat, boots and backpack. There are no after school Miles messes and Ben says he is not home. Ben yells down the basement stairs and asks Lisa (who has Murphy down there) if Miles is with her. She says no. Shene and I start to get emotional and Ben and I run back out to her truck while she holds Miyo and watches us leave from the dining room window. Ben is driving and I am losing it. I am sobbing and crying and panicking, "Oh God, oh God!"

Ben has his cellphone and we are looking everywhere, in yards, in driveways... Meanwhile Shene is at the house thinking, "every second counts" and "should I call 911?"! Ben drops me off in the school yard and continues driving around looking while I fast walk, crying, while my voice cracks as I scream "MILES!". I make it up to the school and the backdoor is of course locked, but there is some type of staff meeting going on with some teachers in a window next to the door. I can see Mr. Elias (Miles' Science and Health and Social Studies teacher) in there, so I pound on the window crazy-person-style and point for him to come and open the door. Did I forget to mention I am in my pajamas and my hair is crazy and I have a bad head cold along with the sobbing scrunched up no-makeup-face? I was still sick from the day before when I kept Murphy from school and Ben called in and we were all trying not to loose the insides of our stomachs and intestines. But I digress...

So Mr. Elias comes to the door and lets me in and I lose it even more (if you can even imagine). I try to get out the words, "Miles didn't come home from school!" By this time it had been an hour past the time he should have been home (so I know for a fact he has been kidnapped, but still have hope he isn't dead). Shene says at this moment she was imagining the news cameras and detectives storming our front yard. Mr. Elias looks concerned and asks if I called the office. He goes back to the room he was in for something and asks me to wait and says he'll go with me to the office. I can't think straight and start for the office without him. He catches up with me and asks if Miles is in Spanish or any other after school activity. I (still sobbing) say, "No he's not in Spanish. What day is it, he might be in something else, I don't know!" Then he says, "Op! Here he is! In the library!" I say some relief swear words (in an elementary school filled with after school activities and in front of my son's teacher). And Mr. Elias opens the door to the library, where Miles is supposed to be, in the Lego Robotics class I signed him up for and paid money for him to be in on Tuesdays after school. I clutch Miles and tell him, "I thought you were kidnapped or dead." Miles laughs, uncomfotable and embarrassed, and hugs me, limply, back. Mr. Elias tells me he is glad it is a happy ending and hands me the phone to call my husband and tell him him that I am an idiot; our son is fine, he is where he should be. He is where I SHOULD know he is. Good lord, I was still so shook up I was crying with joy and I am sure that whoever was around this was like, "that poor kid". So class is over and Miles' is ready to go. I walk with him to the door and say to Mr. Elias who is walking behind us in the hallway, "Apparently it isn't just Miles who doesn't listen. I guess he gets it from his mother." This was an ode to the fact that at conferences he had told me Miles doesn't focus... I wonder why?