Lockdown

The past 44 hours have really been incredible. On Thursday April 18 Becky went out for dinner with some friends. (We have two pretty active groups of mom-friends. One is our neighborhood moms and one is pre-school moms. Becky usually goes out with neighborhood and I the pre-school. On Thursday I had had a rough day at work and was in no mood for socializing, so I stayed home and Becky went out.) She had a great time and got home about 10:45 PM.

She walked in and said “there is something going on in the Square, lots of police. It was crazy” So we quick looked up on the internet and found out that an MIT police officer was shot, literally 1 block from where she had been, which is less than a mile from our house. We were a bit freaked out, stayed up for a bit chatting and catching up on our days.

I went to bed about 1215 and a few minutes later Becky came in to ask if I would come look out front. There was a man sitting on our porch. Very strange. We had our house alarm set, but we called the police to report it and they said they would send officers to check it out. The man left about 10 minutes later, a car pulled up and he went and got inside and they drove away. We called the police back to tell them not to come, and let them know the stranger had left. They asked some questions and that was it.

This whole time we could hear helicopters flying overhead and lots of sirens.

Becky came to bed and we looked online again only to see that the police were in pursuit of the shooters. The shooters had carjacked someone and then held up a gas station that is 3 blocks from our house. No wonder we heard lots of sirens. We speculated that maybe the shooters and this whole thing was related to the Marathon Bombing, but we had no idea at that time. In fact we were just hoping that the car that was car jacked was not the same as the one that pulled up to our house an hour earlier!

After a while we finally shut off our phones and went to sleep – it was about 2AM.

At 545AM my mom called me (woke us up) to tell me not to leave the house. Cambridge was on “lockdown” and we were not supposed to leave the house. Well after only a few hours of sleep we were stunned. Stunned to turn on the TV and see the events of the night. Newscasters and police had created a “ground zero” at our local Target shopping plaza. Very close friends of ours live within the search zone.

We were relieved to learn that the car jacked was not the car in front of our house, and that the whole “man on our porch” appeared to be just a random thing. We have a well lit front yard, and are on a corner with street lights and maybe the guy just wanted to sit down while he waited for his ride. Who knows.

I called my employees, closed my office for the day, emailed clients, talked to my boss etc. Ally woke up a while later and we told her there would be no Aquarium as we had planned for the day. She asked why and we explained that the Aquarium was closed – she asked why and Becky said something happened and it had to close. I told her I was having a “stay home day” and not going to work, and we gave her a small toy we’d been saving for a special occasion (this seemed like a good one). She clapped and asked if she could stay in her pajamas all day. We said sure, knowing that for the next few hours we were required to stay inside our house.

As it turns out the “stay indoors” order lasted until 6pm. I took pictures throughout the day to document it.

 

Time at home is not complete without monopoly. Ally whooped Becky. Even our cat Nali was interested in playing. He sat on the Go To Jail corner!

Ally worked on a picture of sea animals after monopoly. She drew everything we could think of. Then Becky looked up even more creatures on the ipad.

After lunch – Ally actually ate a little quesadilla filling on a chip – Ally and Becky worked on a craft – it was a needlepoint project we’ve been saving (thanks Aunt Beth).

It was about this time that Becky and I decided we needed to talk with Ally about the events of the day. We were concerned that she would hear something from someone else and we wanted to be able to control the message. Ally had noticed we were checking out phones and looking at them more than we usually do. So we explained that there was a bad man someplace – he was hiding and the police asked us to stay in our house until they found him. She was a bit confused until I explained it was like hide and seek – he did something bad and the police were looking for him. We explained we were not scared but that we needed to listen to the police. She seemed ok with it.

Ally made a fort, and took a very long bath – bath was about 45 minutes!

After bath she put on clean pajamas. She cried a bit about wanting to go outside, and I said I was sorry and we could not. I distracted her with the offer of painting pictures. So she painted.

After painting Ally had some dinner and we played a game on my phone. I am not very good at the game, Ally beats me every time – which is to be expected since it’s a gymnastics game! After dinner we watched the movie Dolphin Tale (thanks for the recommendation Cheryl – we loved it).

By the time the movie was over the lock down order had been lifted, but they still had not caught the suspect. We decided it would be ok to play in our front yard.

So hula hooping it was! Nothing like hula hooping in the twilight in your pajamas and slippers.

I tried it too. Ally was my photographer.

I am not as good as Ally.

We went inside after a while and Becky told me the police had found the suspect, but not actually arrested him yet. Ally was begging to go out with her scooter.

So she and I took a walk up to her school and back while Becky stayed home and watched the news.

On our walk I noticed this house with an American flag hanging out their window. It seemed so poignant to me after the events of the day and the week.

Becky and I took turns baking. I made pecan and apple pies (each is about 8”) and Becky made soft pretzels.

This morning when she woke up, as we snuggled Ally asked me if they caught the man. I told her yes they did, and he was at the hospital, because he got hurt when he ran away from the police. I reiterated that the police had said it was safe the night before, when we scootered around the neighborhood.

This morning was busy with gymnastics and a play date. Ally and I came home exhausted – we snuggled together for about 45 minutes until she was ready to get up. I think she needed some mommy time – and the physical contact of being near me.  I crashed soon after and Becky took over while I napped.

It has been an extremely stressful time.

Who ever thought that a time would come when we had to “stay inside” during a massive manhunt. The whole experience was unreal. We are extremely grateful to all the law enforcement and public officials who made the decisions they did and caught the suspect. We have always been proud to live here, but this past week has shown us the very best of so many people.