Flour. Copious quantities of flour. Everywhere, with a tube of toothpaste mixed in. And some windex. That is what happens when you enjoy the silence for too long. And the term "long" is only established by the situation. Two minutes for the kitchen, fifteen seconds for the bathroom, until the screaming starts outside. It's all relative. It's only three seconds at the beach...............
For Julians birthday we went to his favorite place, the beach. The little spit of heaven that we call Pensacola Beach is teaming with the happy squeals of children splashing and the inaudible groans of the fratboys finding themselves alone and confused on the beach in the morning.
As we made a move to stake our claim, we all reveled in the beauty of the day. I went to lay a towel down and set up the sushi (by the way, the worst thing ever to take to the beach.)
Looking up to take inventory, I found that I was one babe short. Shit. Julian was out of range. I started running the shoreline asking people if they had seen a little boy two feet tall with a mohawk and getting bewildered looks.
Everysecond that passed I became more and more panicked and  less coherent. "Please, please don't be in the water, " I begged.
Two minutes. That's how long he was lost. It's all it takes to drown a baby.
"Excuse me we found you son" a man called to me. A flutter of panic washed over me. Shit shit shit. He led my up the boardwalk, and there my little monster was standing outside the bar he walked into. "Here he is, maam" said the bartender.
That little monster walked up onto the boardwalk and right into Capt'n Fun's bar.
It took them a few minutes before they asked for his ID. But I'd imagine he'd said, "Bushwhacker, peas" in the cutest little way.
I balled, emotionally drained from the fiasco. What a nightmare.
But I guess that's what you get when you don't respect the silence. That simple little void of auditory stimuli that allows you to catch a mental breath in a sea of parental status checks. That happen 300 times a minute. A joyful deprivation as well as insurmountable fear of the potential disasters your miniscule vacation has allowed. Fear it, love it, it is what it is, but with two years olds always be on your guard.