Of tacos and leaving kids behind

Not that my inbox is full of applications for potential adoptions, but my conscience forces me to admit that at least twice I have been accused, tried, and found guilty of negligent parenting. What mother can raise seven children without one or two instances of leaving a child behind?

With no fast food chains closer than an hour's drive from our house, our favorite spur-of-the-moment dinner treat is TACOS. In our earlier years in Mexico there were no good taco stands in our town. Instead we used to drive over to Taco Brown in Tlacolula, which our babies always called "Taco-lula." (My grown children and any former team members are now salivating with the very mention of Taco Brown. They are the best!)

The problem with going out for tacos is that taco joints do not traditionally open until after dark. With small kiddos, that meant always returning home past bedtime. It didn't take our clever children long to figure out that sleeping children generally got carried straight to bed without having to brush teeth. This developed into a game of pretending to be asleep so they could be carried lovingly into the house.

To discourage fakers, especially as they grew older and heavier, Jim would haul them fireman style over his shoulder, purposely banging them gently on a door frame or wall on the way in, resulting in groans or giggles that kept the game fun even though they still had to brush their teeth.

One night after tacos, Jim was carrying the big kids and I was carrying any younger ones I could still lift. Going back and forth, we honestly lost count of how bodies we had transported. Finally we did a quick check for legs dangling under the seats of the van. Seeing none and assuming everyone was in the house, we locked the car, locked up the house, and went to bed.

About four or five o'clock in the morning, our truly COLD hour of the day, I heard a strange noise at the door. There stood a shivering Timmy who had genuinely fallen asleep in the car with his legs up on the bench where we couldn't see them. He'd gotten left behind! Poor kid. How could you forget a sweet face like this?


If you think this is bad, wait until you hear my other taco story involving a child left behind. My kids should be thankful that God watched over them and protected them. At least He will never leave them or forsake them (Joshua 1:5)....