The scariest thing that I can imagine happened to me today. I was picking up Captain Jelly Belly from preschool, and Gal Smiley was standing right behind me, making silly faces at the baby brother of another kid in CJB’s class. I put CJB’s coat on, which took no more than one minute, and when I turned around again, Gal Smiley was gone. Totally vanished.
I can definitely say that I have never felt such panic. I sat CJB down with strict instructions not to move and ran up and down the hallway, into every classroom. I’m sure everyone thought I’d gone crazy — I was wild with worry, and I was barely able to keep my voice from cracking as I yelled out, “Has anyone seen my daughter?” The teachers who heard me understood my fears right away and immediately started looking too.
I didn’t find her in any of the rooms so I ran for the outer door, and just as I flew it open, I found another one of the moms bringing her back up the steps. It turned out that she had just followed along or been swept up in a big group of kids that were heading out, and went out too. I got to her just as I could see the “Where’s my mommy?” panic rising on her own face. I calmed her down right away with lots of hugs and kisses but all the way home she couldn’t stop saying, “I went outside! I went outside!” in a very confused voice — she just didn’t understand how it had all happened.
I didn’t either. I’ve heard abduction stories on the news and the parents always say, “I just turned my back for a second.” It’s hard to believe but now, I know it’s true. It’s very hard, but as a parent, you do have to physically take your eyes off of your kids every now and again — you can’t keep them all in your eyesight all the time, and eventually you just have to trust that the other one will be there when you swing back around in 30 or 60 seconds. It amazed me how fast Gal Smiley could get away from me in such a short time — that she was all the way outside, in the parking lot, I’m sure will cause me no end of nightmares. Luckily we were in an environment where everyone had little kids, and the cars in the lot are very kid-focused, so I’m sure she was never in any real danger, and there were plenty of grown ups around to find her and reunite us quickly. But man, I just can’t stop thinking about it. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that my heart didn’t stop racing for an hour, and I could barely bring myself to stop hugging poor Gal Smiley.
Even now I’m getting teary eyed just thinking about the whole thing. I can’t say what I would have done differently at the time, but on the next school day I’ll probably have Gal Smiley tied to me at the waist. It’s a crazy, scary world out there, and I found out today what crazy and scary really mean.
TurtleHead 
That sounds absolutely horrible! It reminds me of my cousin who ended up getting on the wrong bus that went to the wrong kindergarten. My aunt was a basket case by the time they tracked her down.
It sounds like you did what any other parent would have done in such a situation. I’m glad it worked out.
So sorry to hear you had to go through this terrible experience! But I am glad that it was in an environment where there were helpful moms around, and that she was returned safely.
Man, kids can get into so much trouble, so fast. It is pretty scary. We see the same thing at home all the time with Mr Excitement, who is becoming more and more mobile (and curious, and determined) at an alarming rate, and both and I are always finding we don’t adapt our behavior as quickly as we should to reflect all of his new abilities.
Of course it’s great that the story has a happy ending — I believe we learn best from our mistakes, and it’s fortunate that you were able to learn that lesson without any undesirable consequence.
JEM took HeWhoMustBeWalked out on the weekend. It was pretty cold or so we thought. She was out for 30 minutes and we started worrying a bit – she must be getting cold. At about 40 minutes we started driving around the neighborhood looking for her. No luck! We called her friends – not there. We were on our way out to look again and she came strolling down the street saying, “Hi, what’s the big deal?”. She had gone to a nice quite spot and had only bumped into one other person on the way.
We demanded that she at least tell us when to expect her and where she’s going. We also suggested that she should ask other people along if she’s not going to stay in the neighborhood. It’s a real shame that we feel we have to react this way. Yes there are a very small number of people to be concerned about but it doesn’t really make sense to get worked up? I don’t want my kids to be careless but I do want them to be mostly carefree!