big scare

Joaquin gave us the scare of our lives yesterday. We were outside playing and he was kicking the ball around...we have a mini soccer goal...and he kicked hard and it headed for the far driveway. Our driveway wraps around the house and has two entrances to the main street. Now normally he reaches it before it starts to roll down...but this time he didn't. Juan Pablo and I were both on the porch. Joaquin looked back at us pointing to his ball and crying, "my ball!!" and then he took off after it. Juan Pablo immediately lept off the porch after him and both of us were yelling, "Stop!!!" at the top of our lungs. But he didn't. He ran right into the street after it. To understand how dangerous this was...our driveway is cut into the woods and land in front of our house...and you can barely see to get out of it when you are sitting high up in a minivan...much less a little kid running out of it. Otterdale is a pretty busy road with lots of lunatics driving too fast on it. And it happened around 5pm, but we thank God it was Sunday! I have no doubt if a car had been coming, he wouldn't be here anymore. So we hugged him and fussed at him and told him to never do that again...that if the ball ever goes down the street, to run to mommy or daddy and we would get it. We were pretty shaken up the rest of the evening.