Wandering off at 2 and a half

This story Terence never knew, I didn't tell him when it happened, but I gues once he reads this he will know.

WE had just moved in to our current house, which means that Kayleigh was around 2 1/2 years old. I had woken up one morning and found we didn't have enough milk for breakfast. Terence and Natassja were still asleep, but Kayleigh was already up. It must have been Autumn because Kayleigh was only wearing her nappy and a pair of socks. I told Kayleigh to stay inside, play with her toys (or something) or go snuggle in with her Dad while I went to the local shops to get some milk for breakfast. Kayleigh seemed to understand and toddled off to the bedroom. I went down to the shop, grabbed the milk and went home. I put Kayleigh's breakfast together and went to get her. It was then that I realised that she wasn't in the house, so I went outside in the backyard and looked around (the backyard was a jungle of weeds and concrete at that stage) and realised that the back gate was slightly opened. I freaked, ran out the front and then a young boy (around 9 or 10) walked down the driveway with Kayleigh in tow. He told me she was down at the shops walking up and down the aisle looking for 'Mummy'. The shop owner (such a responsible adult!!) told the boy where we lived and to take her home. I thanked the boy and took Kayleigh inside, freaking out still.

I didn't pass Kayleigh on the way back from the shops (it's only two doors down), so she must not have realised I had come home and gone out the back gate after I was inside. I told Kayleigh never ever go out the front without mummy or Daddy. I still remember the panic I felt when I couldn't find her.

10 things you might not have known

I was thinking about some things Kayleigh did that wouldn't make a whole post by themselves:

1. Kayleigh used to wake me up by shaking my hand. She didn't want to wake her dad so she would sneak into the room, kneel down on the floor and start shaking my hand until I woke up. I didn't realise until after she was gone that she was the only one who did it.

2. Kayleigh once gave herself a bald spot on the crown of her head. She said her head was really itchy and she scratched it until I noticed she had a bald spot bigger than a 50c piece. She wore her hair in a pony tail for 3 months straight after that.

3. Kayleigh went through 6 school bags in year 7 because she used to take EVERYTHING to school.

4. Kayleigh always insisted that we got strawberry plants for our vege patch each year, although I don't think we ever got any strawberries.

5. Kayleigh always wanted to help her dad out, no matter how messy or dirty the job was. Digging in the garden, playing with the cars, moving turf or building things, Kayleigh was always there to help.

6. Kayleigh never slept much. She was always the last to bed and the first awake. She always got up in the middle of the night, and sometimes even stayed up and didn't go back to bed.

7. Her favourite saying before she passed away (at least at home) was' Stop back chatting'.

8. Her sneakers, which she was cremated in, she called her bubblegum shoes - they were ASIACS that had blue and green stripes on them.

9. IF there was a perfect tomato in the vege patch, Kayleigh would eat it before anyone else saw it.

10. Kayleigh was scared of spiders, until she figured out that the vacuum cleaner was the best way to get rid of them. After that, she was never scared of spiders in the house.