Two of my older children are really good about staying with me when we are 'out and about.' The third is not.
Since he was a toddler, my husband and I have called this son "The Wanderer." He doesn't deliberately run off when we are in public places, he just stops to smell the roses, stick his fingers in ant hills, and pick the leaves off of trees. A couple of days ago, my kids and I rode our bikes to 7-11. On the way, we passed through a wooded park.
Half way through the park, I turned around and counted children. One was missing. We found him on an imaginary trail in the middle of the trees.
Needless to say, this child learned his address and my cell phone number very early on. Until he was four, he used to experience the world from afar (ie strapped into the stroller). Now that that is no longer a viable option, he wears these bracelets.
"If you call them bracelets one more time, I'm going to gnaw my arm off," threatened the Wanderer a few days ago.
"If you stop wandering away from me in public places, then you won't have to wear the bracelets," I informed him.
This morning, the bracelets went missing. Around noon, I found one floating in the toilet. A few hours ago, half of one turned up under the Wanderer's bed.
For future reference, I will try to remember that six year-old boys prefer the term "wristband."
July 26, 2010
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Maybe he'd be more receptive to the term "Slide Pass"? or "Home Free Pass"? LOL!
I just thought I'd let you know my husband and I had our third boy a week and a half ago, and the only name we could agree on was yours: Kortlen..but we liked it with a K. So, thanks for the laughs and for providing an upstanding male role model and name sake for our child! :)
P.S. LOVE reading about your adventures... bless you!
haha. That's tough. I was a wanderer as well. I got lost, among other places, at the Coliseum during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. My poor parents.
Where did you get them? I want to buy bracelets for my identical twin boys- one in blue that says Ethan and one in red that says Jonah, so their Sunday school teacher and my friends don't get them mixed up!
I do not have a wanderer. I have an autistic child who gets flustered easily.
1. I saw (and bookmarked but cannot find at the moment) a neat idea to use printable tatoo paper to make lickNstick style tatoos of your info to the kids to wear (like to themeparks, etc)
2. I used homemade shrinky dink (#6 plastic) to make zipper pulls with our info.
3. I tried writing the info on the inside of a LiveStrong bracelet but it smudged badly.
Do said bracelets looks like Silly Bandz? That might help.
Road I.D. makes wrist bands. They're fabric and metal. There mainly for runners and cyclists that may pass out along the side of the road. They can have name, phone number and maybe address on them. And they can't be ripped in half.
My nephew is or was, he's 21 now, a wanderer. Oh the places we've misplaced him...LOL
Get a back sharpie marker and write the info on his stomach. Worked for those in Hurricane Katrina. The only backslide to this is he may take to tattoos!!!
My nephew has four older sisters who used to love to dress him up. Of course my brother went ballistic when he'd come home and find his son wearing all sorts of jewelry "like his sisters." So they took to calling bracelets "man bands." I think this could work for you! haha
http://store.safetytat.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1
Might be something you want to invest in. No bracelet involved.
haha that is pretty funny I actually had a leash that was on my wrist to keep me from even wandering off! boys will be boys!
Oh poor baby! Wait he probably doesn't like that I said that either.
I don't really have a wanderer, but I do have a watcher. Whenever we are out in public he gets distracted by something he sees - stops to watch and the rest of us have moved on. He has also walked into several signs, poles, people, and assorted other stationary objects.
I've seen the removable tattoo things somewhere. (found it! Safety Tat! http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/travel-outings/safety-tat-119047)
Have fun! We have the slow child- one who lags FAR behind everyone else. A leash has fixed the losing of this child, but she still cries "Too fast, Mama!" loudly in public places which makes me look like a horrible mother.
I have a leash for my wanderer. It collects nasty stares and snide comments from people who know nothing about him or his history. I tell them to kiss my rear.
Thank you so much for this post. I'm taking my seven children across the country to D.C. next month. My youngest two, ages 2 and 5, are wonders, and I've been nervous. This should ease my mind a little bit!
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