A perfect example of this came this past February. I had recently undergone a radiation treatment for cancer, and being radioactive, did not want to come into close contact with my young children. (It could damage their thyroids, long story short. But, I digress.) Given the circumstances, I had quarantined myself in a nearby hotel for the weekend.
That night, I received an urgent sounding phone call from my oldest daughter Jessica, who tells me that her father told her to call me. Right away, my heart skips a beat as I think someone must be hurt or there has been an accident or some other terrible family emergency has occured for me to be getting such a phone call when I (unbeknownst to them) am not feeling well.
"What's wrong?", I ask her. "Is everything OK?"
"No," she replies. In a split second time lapse my mind is racing through terrible things that might be wrong. I am starting to go into panic mode! Then she says, "do you know where the Reese's Pieces are that I bought the other day to use in the brownies I am making?" (And now in my mind I am both relieved and want to hang up on her for causing me that moment of worry and the ten extra gray hairs!)
Now, I had no prior knowledge of the existence of these candies in our household at all. I never saw them, never heard of their purchase, until this phone call.
So, I reply to her, "no sweetie, I didn't even know we had any."
This obviously was not enough to satisfy her. Apparently I was not lucid enough to pick up on the fact that she was waiting for my "momdar" to kick into action. So she pressed further.
"I bought them the other day for the brownies I made and now the brownies are done and I want to put them on top and I can't find them!" (My husband, Brad, helpfully chimes in in the background that the bag is about one-and-0ne-half pounds, huge, and hard to miss. Yes, apparently so hard to miss that they-who-cannot-find-it-in-the-same-house-with-them think I will have much better luck spotting it from several miles away!)
At this point my patience is growing thin, but I calmly try to walk my daughter back through steps I think she might have taken when she might have purchased them while trying to think like my preteen in the process.
"Did you check the snack cupboard, the baking cupboard, the garage where you take your shoes off before you come inside?", I ask. She replies "no" to all.
"Did you sit them by the computer? In the kitchen? The dining room?, " I ask again.
"No, no, and no," Jessica replies, sounding more urgent than ever. Her brownies are cooling and she must, absolutely must get those Reese's on soon or it will be too late!
(At this point, I am thinking that the grocery store is only two blocks away and they should just go buy another bag!)
I turn my "momdar" on high power and give it one more try. I ask her when she bought them. She tells me she bought them when she shopped for Valentine's Day with her dad. OK, now we are getting somewhere. I remember now she hid those gifts in her bedroom. I send her to her room to look. She tells me they are not there.
Now, I know how my oldest daughter searches for things. If she walks into a room and turns her head once to the left and once to the right and does not see the object in site, then it is not in there. She does not believe in moving things around and looking under and between things. So, I do a little redirect.
"Where did you hide the presents you bought your friends and siblings for Valentine's day?"
"In between my floor pillows," she replies. "but I already looked and they are not there."
I tell her to look again. "Momdar" is on full alert now! And.....
Crisis averted! Reese's found in the nick of time to add to the brownies while still warm!
Once again a mom's radar has saved the day. Now if I could only use it to find my own car keys.
