Was I overreacting? Let me lay this out for y'all.
Thursday is one of our regular sitter days - ordinarily we have a Service girl named M who comes from 2 to 6 pm. Mr. J and I had discussed moving those times back by half an hour, as 6 pm can be tricky for me on days that I take the bus. But as of yesterday, Mr. J had not yet called the Service to change our times. M is usually pretty flexible, but she wasn't coming yesterday - we had a new girl coming, whom I had not yet met although I think she came one time before.
Yesterday Mr. J scheduled his first sailing lesson of the season. If the wind picked up and he took the students out on the water, he would not be home by 6 pm. We discussed this on Wednesday evening and he said he could ask the sitter if she would mind staying a little later. I said, "If I don't know tonight, it doesn't help me. I'll have to drive tomorrow so I can get home by 6 in case she can't stay." And I drove to work on Thursday.
I spoke with Mr. J by phone at about 2 pm, and the sitter had not yet arrived but he was racing to get himself ready to leave. I hustled home and arrived at 5:55 pm. When I parked in the garage, Mr. J's truck was not there - and my child was nowhere in my house. There was no car parked in front of my house that might have been the sitter's.
Well, I thought, maybe the wind died and the lesson is already over and Mr. J has the baby with him somewhere. Or maybe the sitter didn't show up and Mr. J took the baby to his mom's since he was in such a hurry to get out the door. Wait - his mom is out of town, maybe he took the baby to his sister. Called Mr-Sis, but she hadn't talked to Mr. J all day. Okay, maybe he dropped the baby off with my cousin. Texted Cuz, but no dice.
I called and texted Mr. J repeatedly with no answer - a good indication that he was out on the river without cell service, and by extension, without the baby. There were no signs that anyone had been recently in the house. And the scheduled sitter was not our familiar M, but some chick I had never met.
At this point, I started to panic just a bit. Surely, surely, the baby was fine. But what if he wasn't? What was I supposed to do, wait three hours for Mr. J to get my messages? "Oh well, officer, I figured the baby would turn up eventually so I made dinner and watched some TV."
At 6:17, the sitter waltzed in with the baby. She had taken him for a walk - without leaving any kind of note - because Mr. J had told her that I would probably not arrive home until closer to 6:30. Now Mr. J gets dinged for that part ... I had told him the night before that I would drive so I could get home by 6, and he should know as well as you girls do that if I say that I am going to be home by 6 pm, I am not going to roll in 30 minutes later. The sitter gets a little ding too - regardless of what time she thought I would get home, probably not a great idea to leave the house with the child and leave no note at all. What if I came home an hour early?
But I recognize that these two small missteps only became a major concern when combined. I didn't really get ticked off until Mr. J came home and said that he was sorry I got upset, but really, it was my own fault because I had overreacted. I believe his exact words were, "You are a little too quick to push the panic button."
So I ask you girls: do you think that I was unreasonable to be scared and upset?
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