Lost and Found

Ugh.... After reading my cousin Liz's blog about how her son had wandered off at the beach this summer (and thankfully was found again), my stomach has been in knots KNOWING that this could happen to anyone, anywhere.

Sure enough, we had our own little episode with Christopher. I took him to an Autumn Fest at our old church in NJ for a night of fun because Steve had to work late. I was weary about going by myself with Chris, but now that he is older, I figured I wouldn't have to chase him down like I did in the mall that one time.

So, we were having a ball. They had an inflatable slide and a Spiderman obstacle course that hey absolutely loved. He waited so nicely in the long lines and was having a great time. We even went on a hayride.

Finally, I had reached my exhaustion limit and we still had a 50 minute ride home (and I'm not famous for my wonderful night time driving). So, I told Chris that he could go into the Spiderman obstacle (which had a slide) one last time and then we were heading home. He excitedly bounded into the obstacle and I walked around to one of the obstacles two exits to wait for him. I waited and waited and, after several minutes, he did not come out! I initially thought that maybe he went around to the other exit and perhaps I had looked away for a split second and he got by me. So I ran to the other exit and no sign of him. I spoke to both of the ride workers and no one had seen him (there were hundreds of kids so that was no surprise). I frantically ran around the gymnasium looking and searching for my little boy. There were literally hundreds of people in this place and very hard to focus so I climbed onto the platform in the gym to look all around. All I could think of was where could he have gone... did he perhaps run outside into the dark parking lot... what in the world was my husband going to say?

After my failed search from the platform, I ran over to the guy running the music and he put me in touch with the children's pastor and they started making announcements with Chris' description. Several frantic minutes passed and still nothing. I was really freaking out and just running around yelling, Jesus, Jesus help me.

At long last, one of the worker's on the Spiderman ride told me they found him. HE WAS STILL INSIDE THE OBSTACLE. My little man thought that since I said we were going home after this "last time" he would linger and make his "last time" last for as long as possible. I was so relieved to see him and yet so annoyed that he had outsmarted me. I didn't even think of looking inside the obstacle and none of the hundreds of kids who went through the course said anything about seeing a little 4 year old just hanging out at the bottom of the obstacle.

Thank God he was fine and all turned out well. Needless to say we had a long talk about the incident and I had more than enough adrenaline for the long ride home.