I was reading another blog (http://www.workingmother.com/web?service=vpage/161) last night when a post by blogger Carol Evans brought back a memory that I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember.  The blog was on temporarily loosing sight of your child.  So, breaking my rule on personal blogs, here is what I wrote in response to her article.  If you are lucky you will never have to experience this yourself.

“I have to say that reading your story brought tears to my eyes as the memory of misplacing my three year old rushed over me. My incident was similar to your early experience. I had just had my second child and had decided to take the two of them for an afternoon at the zoo. My girlfriend, also a mother of two, joined us.

We were sitting in the manatee building enjoying the exhibit when my newborn decided that it was time to eat. I moved over to one of the benches to feed him. At the time, my older son was with my girlfriend and her daughter oohing and aahing at the fish in the aquarium. I told her that I would be on the bench – just a few feet away.

It all flashed be for my eyes in a matter of moments. I looked up to where my son had been standing and he was no longer there. I looked to my friend, who now only stood with her two children. Panic set in immediately. Like you, it started softly… “Sean…., Sean, mommy needs you; Sean where are you.” This quickly advanced to red alert in my mind.

I placed my youngest in his stroller and the two of us began running through the building. He was no where to be found. Of course it was packed – as I mentioned before, it was the only cool spot at the zoo. For some reason I decided to go back to the entrance of the Manatee house – It had automatic doors and if he wasn’t in the building, that was the only way he could have gotten out.

Sure enough, my son had wandered with the crowd (no one noticing he was not with an adult) and made it to the bench outside. Thankfully when I crazily exited the building my son was standing with a woman right out front.

I was so overwhelmed. You are just so thankful to have them back that yelling doesn’t even cross your mind. I had never been so scared. All I kept thinking was “I should have talked to him about strangers, I should have told him what to do if he couldn’t see me.” I found myself just apologizing and feeling guilty that I would even think to leave his side for even a second.

All I could do was cry and hug him. All he could say was “Mommy, I was looking for you, where did you go?”