Watch Your Back

I have learned the past few months how important it is to always be on the look out. Since becoming a mother I try to be more aware of our surroundings, who is around, etc. Brad has always emphasized how important it is to "watch my back" Well, these past few months have definitely proven him right and I am so thankful I was able to be aware of some somewhat "sticky" situations and protect Maddox and myself.

About two months ago I was at Wal-Mart getting groceries with Maddox. It was about 9am and I got us unloaded and proceeded to enter the dreaded Wal-Mart. I noticed a man walking behind us, but I didn't think too much about it. I began shopping, starting with the produce area and noticed the same man shopping the produce as well. I went on the frozen foods, cereal, meat, dairy and the same man was right where we were. I decided to see if it was just "coincidence" so I walked over to the feminine isle...I mean seriously, how many men do you see over there on a given day....well, same man was right on my heals. I was concerned at this point, but I remained calm and took my groceries to check out and get us out of there. As I was checking out I could not locate the man and thought everything was fine....well I was wrong. As I exited the store, I noticed the man walking behind me, I thought to myself "I am not about to load my groceries in the car, with Maddox and a weird guy"....so, I turned around and walked back into Wal-mart and asked the greeter if I could speak to someone in security because I wanted as escort to my car. Security came and asked what the problem was, I told them I felt like I was being followed by a man and they asked if I could still see him. I pointed him out in the parking lot, and they immediately said "Oh no, not him again." Apparently they have had issues with this man and they arrested him right there on the spot. FREAKY!!! My groceries were loaded and I got the heck out of there!!!

Everything was fine, just freaky....well then we had another incident.....

In my previous post I mentioned we has a scary incident at a local park....well here is the full story....I took Maddox to a park close to our neighborhood (it is a park that sits within a neighborhood and it has great little kid slides). We arrived at the park around 10am and Maddox and I were enjoying the slides and the park to ourselves. The playground sits in the middle of lot of grass....you park on the street because there is not a parking lot....like I mentioned, it is in the middle of a neighborhood. We were playing and I noticed a black Ford Focus driving by and slowing down near where we had parked, it looked as though he was going to park the car when I noticed he was no longer on the street but had hopped the curb and was cruising towards the playground IN his car. I swooped up Maddox and reached for my phone in my pocket. I thought "what the heck is this guy doing...there could be kids running around and he is DRIVING on the grass and getting freakishly close to the playground" (He was close enough I could see in his car and saw that it was a man, probably in his late 50s alone) I immediately took off to our car...watching behind us as we walked briskly as to not cause too much of a scene. I got to the car, climbed in with Maddox and locked the doors. I could still see the man, in his car lurking by the playground. I got my phone out to call 911 and decided it was better to just get out of there because I had no idea what was going on. When I put the car in drive, I took one last look at the playground and the black Ford Focus was no longer there.....very strange and my heart was now pounding because I do not know how close we were to danger, or if he was just a weird guy driving on some grass, but I certainly was not about to stay with my 14 month old son to figure it out. Needless to say, we are all fine, it wasn't anything too serious, just makes you aware of your surroundings and I won't be going to any parks without my mom or Brad (just to be safe)

I hesitated posting about this because I don't want to come across as a drama queen or someone who is paranoid, but the more I thought about it, the more I realize other moms read this blog and I just think we all need a little paranoia in our lives to keep us as safe as possible.

Here are some pics of Maddox playing in the back yard!!!