My son who is almost 13 months got out of our fenced in yard. We also have a three year old who plays with the two neighbor kids so I’m assuming one of them left it open. My son managed to get out of the gate and all the way across the street into the guy’s (who lives across the street) backyard. I was inside fighting with my drunk husband about stupid shit. I figured my son was outside because he goes out there all the time. Well I decided to go check on all the kids and I couldn’t find my son. I looked over at the gate and it was opened. I went out it looking for him. He loves the next door neighbor’s (the neighbor who our three year old plays with) garage (I know not the safest) but I was hoping he was there. He wasn’t so I went to our front yard as I walked out to the front there is the neighbor guy holding my son and knocking on my door. He asks “is this your kid?” I said “yes oh my god where was he?” He said “he was in my backyard” my heart sink. Then as I take my son the guy says “might want to keep an eye on your son” made me feel even worse than I already was feeling. On top of that my son had wet through his diaper (we cloth so it doesn’t hold as much as disposables) so his butt was soaked! Then his face was a mess from eating cookies. So not only did he get out and walk across the street he also looked like a hot mess. This all happened last night and this morning I still want to cry over it. I feel awful. Luckily we live in the very back end of a biggish neighborhood so the street isn’t busy.

EDIT.

When I say they’re outside playing it’s with our back door open and I’m in the kitchen doing something which is where the door is and our whole backyard is fenced in. I swear I’m constantly talking to my son and making sure he’s good out there. I don’t just leave him but yesterday I was “busy” fighting with my loser of a husband. The three year old does follow the the neighbors which are almost 6 and 8 years old. I’m not saying it’s their responsibility to watch her but I trust they aren’t going to be doing anything that can get them hurt and my 3 year old just tags along with them. Between me and the neighbor mom we keep an eye on the three of them. My husband and I are already looking into getting a gate that swings shut and locks itself back up. We just moved to this house at the end of May so we haven’t figured out all the kinks just yet. It’s for sure a learning curve on how to keep our gate closed when we have three kids going in and out of them. At first our two puppies would get out. They knew how to push the gate open with their nose. We had to lock one of the gates up. I don’t want to have to lock the other gate but I will if I need to. Like I said I’m really hoping to find something so the gate locks back up on it’s own.

By no means am I trying to say what happened was okay. I wish I could turn back time and would have walked away from the pointless fight I was fighting and been outside with my baby.