Wisconsin child, 3, escapes crib and goes to McDonald’s while mother and twin sister sleep
The little man sure was lovin’ it! His mother, not so much.
A Wisconsin mother recalled the frightening moment she woke up from her sleep to discover her child was missing — only to find the 3-year-old had escaped his crib and fled to McDonald’s.
“He was not in the house. He was not in the basement. He was not in the front yard or the backyard,” Marissa Phiffer, the mother of the twins, explained in her now-viral TikTok.
“This little boy woke up, put his shoes on and walked to McDonald’s.”
Phiffer told TODAY.com that she fell asleep next to the children.
However, when the mother awoke from her brief slumber, she made a heart-dropping discovery.
One of the twins, Aiden, was not in the crib with his sister Aleiya — and even more gut-wrenching, his shoes were missing.
Phiffer said she checked the neighbor’s backyard — a place where her son is known to wander off too.
“I thought that’s where I’d find him. They have a bunch of rocks, and he likes to line them up and play with them,” Phiffer said.
The 23-year-old mother immediately called 9-1-1, terrified about what could’ve happened to her son right under her nose.
Police responded to the distressed mother’s home in “two seconds” with a photo of her son in hand and later informed Phiffer that Aiden was safe at a McDonald’s across the road from their home — a roughly .2 mile journey.
A concerned citizen had noticed Aiden wandering toward the fast food chain and contacted the police, Phiffer shared.
“We run in, and he goes, ‘Hi, Mom!’” Phiffer told the outlet, finding her son hanging out in the play area of the fast food chain.
Phiffer explained she was too relieved to be angry at her son as he was found safe.
Aiden, who his mother says is a big fan of McDonald’s, told her he went on the independent trip because he was “hungry.”
“I almost bought him a Happy Meal, but I was embarrassed,” Phiffer said. “I just wanted to get out of there.”
Phiffer has since installed child-proof safety locks and latches on the doors in an effort to prevent the children from sneaking off to the restaurant unsupervised.
The toddler yearning for McDonald’s is so extreme that Phiffer explained that he would wake from deep slumbers if they pulled into the restaurant’s drive-thru.
“Fries, nuggets, and apple slices — he’d eat that every day,” she told the outlet. “But that was actually his first time going to the PlayLand there.”
The TikTok has been viewed over 2.8 Million times since being posted on July 31 — and has garnered over 500k likes.
Commenters were pleased to hear the boy was safe and the mother was not alone in the wandering toddler fiasco.
“My son did this! he didn’t walk to Mac Donald’s but went across the street, me and my husband was sleeping the cop walked in our house,” a user shared with the mother.
Some even praised the boy’s determination.
“On a positive note he is a go getter and has a lot of confidence. My kids wouldn’t go into a store by themselves for the longest time,” one mother wrote.
“I want to send Aiden a McDonald’s gift certificate,” another commented, saying she’s “so glad he’s safe! He is a brave boy!”
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