Timbrel as Moses

We were talking around the table tonight about things that happened to the kids when they were little, episodes when they got lost and so forth. I remembered this one...

Timbrel was 4, Zion was in her high 2s, Judah was probably ten months old. The Soles family took a drive out to the Dunes area south of town to look for some flat rocks we could use for a walkway in our backyard. We parked the minivan at the entrance to a gravel pit, and we got out to look around. Judah was sleeping in his car seat; I think we had been going to take him along but then realized he was asleep, so we just set his seat back on the bucket seat of the van, and Val looked around for rocks near the van. I took the two girls on a trip down into the gravel pit to look for flat rocks.

The pit curved sharply to the right just ahead, and kept curving till we had gone probably 220 degrees when we came to the end of the pit. I found some good rocks high up on the bank while Timbrel and Zion played down on the floor of the pit, which was pretty solid and mostly dry, except for a few puddles left by a recent rain. The rock that I had found looked too big for me to carry all the way back to the van, so I had the bright idea to go get the van.

"Girls, Daddy is just going to walk over this ridge and get the van, and I will drive it around to where you are, you just stay there!" Timbrel's eyes widened, but I don't think I noticed...

Bad idea, Daddy!

I went around and found Val loading rocks she had found, so I helped her finish and told her the plan. We shut the door beside Judah, got in, and drove down into the gravel pit, and started around the loop toward my rock, when we saw a rather distressing sight. Timbrel had decided that there was no way we were leaving them there, and like Moses she began to lead the children out of the wilderness. Unfortunately, she didn't have much sense about big puddles, and the one we found her stuck in was about 50 feet across. She was out in the middle, both boots stuck fast, and screaming her head off; Zion was about 15 feet behind her, both boots stuck fast and screaming her head off too.

I saw them and slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the van, and ran out to rescue the girls and their boots, which was a difficult task... that mud was really sticky! We all became quite a mud fest; me carrying two screeching girls up to the van. But the van was screaming too... When I hit the brakes, I had failed to notice that Judah was not buckled into the bucket seat, and he went pitching onto the floor face first, still strapped in his car seat. His lip was swelling up at the same rate as his voice...

The Soles family mourned, and I'm sure half the town heard it.