Just Another Manic Monday

It's not even lunchtime yet and we've already had quite an exciting day!

First we had Ethan's first day of school and all of the hoopla that came with that.  It's always an adventure taking all three kids anywhere by myself, but throw in a hundred or so other children and all of their parents and siblings, and it quickly becomes a circus.

To make matters worse there's a new principal at the school who felt the need to make her mark on things from the get go.  A great big, stupid, inconvenient and incomprehensible mark.  Rather than continue to use the large, conveniently and centrally located basketball court to line up all of the children in one place that allows parents to park in either of two different areas, the new system has them crammed together in a much smaller space on the side of the building with a great big bottleneck that creates confusion any time one group is going one way and another group the other, and where all of the parents have to use the same too-small parking lot.

Regardless, Ethan was excited and happy to restart school and see which of his friends from last year would be in his class this year, and after a bumpy start (exacerbated a bit by all of the kindergarten parents being unable to tear themselves away from their children for the first time and making a tight space even tighter), they headed off into the building and we were able to fight our way out of the parking lot and head to the store to get a new pair of sneakers for Ethan.

Normally at a store I'll put Zachary in the actual seat of a shopping cart and buckle him in tightly so he can't dive out like he so desperately wants to, and put Kaeleigh in the back of the cart.  When I got to the store, however, Zachary was nodding off so I put him in the Baby Bjorn instead and let Kaeleigh walk.  It makes her feel like a big girl and we were only running in for a moment, what could possible go wrong?

Well, my first mistake was in assuming it would be a quick trip.  Rule number one when doing something with children is that there is no such thing as a "quick trip."  Anything and everything will automatically take at least twice as long as it should, and that number increases exponentially for each child involved.  Doesn't matter what it is, that's just the way the universe works.  I got cocky since I was minus one child I normally had with me, and just figured we could run in and get out fast.

Unfortunately, the shoe area looked like Hurricane Back-to-School had just gone through it, and the geniuses that stocked the area didn't seem to care about properly matching up the shoes with the little hangers that list their size.  My "quick trip" was quickly turning into a search and rescue mission in hostile territory.

After a few false starts where I found the right shoes in the right size only to discover they were mislabeled and were actually the wrong size, I resorted to manually going through each and every pair of shoes just to locate a pair that would actually fit the boy, style be damned.  Zachary had woken up, but was being good except for a few grabs at the hanging shoes, and Kaeleigh was sticking close by counting this or that and checking things out.

She was being so good, in fact, that I made my second mistake: I took it for granted.  We'd spent a good ten minutes in that aisle so far and she'd never gone more than ten feet away or misbehaved in any way.  She was being perfect.  I should have known better.

I reminded her to stay close and went back to my search, rifling through each pair of shoes checking the sizes when, at last, eureka!  I'd found the shoes!

In the meantime though, I'd lost my daughter. 

She was just... gone.

I did a quick spin to see if she had somehow gotten behind me.  Nothing.

I called out: "Kaeleigh!"  Nothing.

I ran an aisle over to the left and looked in.  Nothing.

Back the other way an aisle to the right from where we were.  Nothing.

"Kaeleigh!"

Nothing.  No response.  No nearby parents or employees responding, "She's over here!"  Just... nothing.

My heart was in my throat and a million terrible, horrible thoughts ran through my mind, not the least of which was that I realized I'd accidentally left my cell phone at home and I wouldn't be able to call 911 or reach my wife.

I ran all the way down the aisle to the other side, frantic.

"KAELEIGH!"

People in other sections were starting to notice me and I could see them start looking around.

Looking left.

Nothing.

Right.

Nothing.

WHERE IS SHE?!

"tee hee."  From the left.

"Kaeleigh?!"  Headed that way.

"tee hee.  tee hee."  Up ahead, on the right.

"Kaeleigh, where are you baby?"  Running now.

"tee hee."  Just up ahead.

And there she was.  Hiding under some backpacks about five aisles down from where we were, chuckling like we were playing hide and seek.

Relieved but with the adrenaline still flowing we had a little chat about the importance of staying where she could see me and I could see her and I really think she understood the gravity of the situation based on the way I spoke and my body language, but just to be safe, next time I'm grabbing a shopping cart.