Cookie & Elmo

When James and Joe were babies, they loved Cookie and Elmo. We had two sets of Cookie and Elmo. They were not passed down from one brother to the next. They each had their own Cookie and Elmo. Plush, soft, stuffed velvety soft monsters. Yes, Cookie and Elmo are actually monsters but not scary monsters. I must confess when the boys had their first sleepovers, I swiped a Cookie or an Elmo and slept with them, just to have the smell of my boys with me.

We've had a disturbing rash of home burglaries over the last two weeks in my neighborhood. Two homes on Caledonia Road, one on Balsam, an attempted break-in at my next door neighbor foiled by his alarm system and another I don't have the complete details on yet that happened today.

My home was burglarized some five years ago. It was traumatic, financially and more so, emotionally. My sitter called me at work and told me glass was all over the kitchen floor. I told her to get out of the house immediately and call 911. I didn't know if anyone was still in the house. At the time, there was a lot of construction going on in the neighborhood and a lot of traffic going through as well. We were not the only home burglarized.

My ten year old (then five!) remembers coming home and seeing the cop car in the street and worrying was the dog hurt by the bad men.

I had to tell my kids about the recent spate of robberies. Joe doesn't know about the next door neighbor because that would just freak him out.  I discussed what the strategy should be if the boys happen to be home alone if a burglar should strike. I called the Second Precinct and spoke to the cops there and asked their advice.

Set the alarm if they are home alone.
If the alarm is tripped, the police are called automatically.
Go to a far room that can be locked and call 911.
Call me. Call Dad.
Don't leave the house until the police arrive, I arrive or Dad comes home.

I wanted to go grocery shopping last night in the early evening and Joe asked me to please stay home, wait until Dad got home. He asked me if the robbers came, would they have guns? These are not the questions a 10 year old should have.

He had a great training session tonight with a bunch of his buddies. He was carefree, having fun and forgot all about robbers, guns and fear.

So between baseball training sessions, baseball tryouts at the high school, my shopping trip happened at 10 pm this evening. The store was quiet, the trip was quick and I bought WAY too many cookies and Peeps.

These are the things you do to make your children feel safe. You grocery shop at 10 pm at night. You buy them comfort food. You wish that you could turn back the clock, tuck them in with Cookie and Elmo and they would feel completely safe sleeping with friendly monsters they know and love, and never dream of the bad monsters they have learned, all too soon, exist in this world.

To the thieves who stole my child's sense of security, heed the warning of my friend, Glenn:

A word of warning to whomever pissed off Mary: 

LEAVE THE PLANET NOW! It's your safest move. 

Here endeth the warning.

Sleep well, my young princes. Mom and Dad got your back.
Love you. Mean it.