Naked Boy

Last summer we were doing our typical morning thing: I was at the table feeding Tucker, Tyson was playing in the living room, Turbo was whining at the back door and Stuart was getting ready for work. Very typical morning. Tyson wanders over to the backdoor to investigate what his toys have been up to while he was sleeping-nothing.

"Naked boy mommy."

Huh? See, Tyson was just 2.5 years old and still developing his amazing verbal skills.

"No buddy, you're not a naked boy right now."

After baths we would let Tyson run around naked because he loved it and in the hopes that not wearing a diaper would magically make potty training happen. (Obviously the potty training did not happen for another year, but it DID happen and we are all happier for this incredible gift our son bestowed on us.)

"Naked boy mommy."

"Tyson, you're not a naked boy right now. Why don't you go play with your cars?"

"Mommy! Naked boy!"

"Tyson..." as I get up to help him away from the back door, I look up and see a naked boy. A.Naked.Boy.

"Stuart!!"

There is a little boy, naked, standing at the back of our fence just staring at Tyson. I open the back door, look around, see no one else outside (it is only 6:45 am), mentally check off all the kids that live around us, and deduct that I have no clue who this naked child is.

"Honey, what are you screaming...whoa, who's that?"

"I have no clue."

He doesn't seem to be hurt, just naked and a little scared. I walk up to the fence and ask him what his name is. Nothing. Where's your mommy? Nothing. Are you ok? Nothing.

"puppy"

"Do you like my puppy dog?"

"puppy"

I look around again, desperately trying to figure out who this child is and why no one is outside claiming him.

"Alright sweetie. I'm going to pick you up and we're gonna find your mommy. Ok?"

"puppy"

I lean over the fence and heave him over, trying not to scare him and trying not to scrape him against the chain links. As I walk in the door, Stuart immediately peppers me with questions, "who is he? is he ok? do you know him? what's his name?"

"I have no idea."

As Stuart walks outside to surely find a panic-stricken mother, I grab a pull-up (kind of handy that we had just decided that week to start potty training and thus had a brand new package of pull-ups) and semi-clothe this naked boy. He immediately spots Tyson's cars and pads over to start playing with his new non-naked friend.

Stuart comes back a few minutes later-no one is outside, no one seems to have lost a child.

"I think we need to call the police."

15 minutes later our house looks like a crime scene. We have 2 SAFB Police cars, 1 WF Police car, plus the usual gawkers realizing that their neighbors are now crazy too. One of the SAFBPD Officers takes the little boy so that Stuart and I can give our accounts of finding this toddler and another officer starts walking up and down the streets. Mind you, it's been a good 30-45 minutes since we have found this child.

Finally a social worker makes her way to our house and thanks us for finding and clothing the child (he was the same size as Tyson).

It's just at that time that one of the officers spots a woman wearing only a long t-shirt walking on the street behind our house. He quickly flags her down and we learn that this woman is in fact the derelict mother.

Apparently the little boy woke up, got out of bed, rounded up the two dogs, opened the unlocked back door, let himself and the dogs out into the yard and then opened the unlocked back gate so that the dogs could play more. All the while his mother slept mere feet from the ruckus. (I don't know about your dogs, but mine aren't exactly quiet first thing in the morning.) After letting the dogs loose, the little boy took off trying to get his dogs back-thus the repeated "puppy." When the father came home from PT he found an open back door, open back gate, missing child, missing dogs and a sleeping wife. I can only imagine the string of obscenities that came out of his mouth.

Finally getting the full story, CPS still had to take the child into custody till they could further investigate the "problem" and the officers finished up with Stuart and I. Turns out the naked boy only lived a block away from us but his parents had no clue how long he was gone.

Yesterday, Tyson was playing outside and out of no where asked me about the naked boy. Strange what these kids remember.