Scare of a Lifetime

I woke up this morning to discover that P (the 5yo) was gone. Nowhere in the house. Nowhere to be found. Also missing were his comforter, pillows, some clothes, some toys, and some books. I ran through the house, discovered that the front door was no longer locked, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

There he was - outside in the "outdoor hallway" between our building and the one across from us - laying on the ground, his pillow propped up against the railing, covered in his comforter, looking at a book.

We had a nice long talk about why he left. Apparantly, he is sick and tired of his brother and sister waking him up every morning. They give him a headache with all of the noise they make, and he doesn't like it when they turn on the tv. So we talked about how it is my job to keep him safe, and I can't keep him safe if I don't know where he is. That the reason he can't go outside without a parent is that we won't be able to keep him safe, etc. And we talked about alternative plans in the morning to avoid his brother and sister. Like, when they wake him up, he can go into D's room and lay on her bed until he feels like getting up and dealing with the noise & tv, etc. *sigh*

Let me tell you - it's a good thing I got plenty of sleep last night, or I would have gone crazy when I woke up. Thank God everything turned out ok.