Missing Emily
One day this week while Nathan was at preschool, Emily, Joshua, and I went to the mall to look at something. We parked near the Barnes and Noble since that was near our shopping destination. Plus, I love books, and walking through bookstores makes me happy.
On our way back to the car, as we headed through Barnes and Noble, we made a little pit stop at their new toy section. If you haven’t been yet, you really should. They have a lot of interesting, fun toys there. They also have a Duplo building table. That’s a major hit in my little crowd.
With Nathan’s birthday coming up, I wanted to see if there were any toys that Emily wanted to get her big brother for his birthday. We spent a few minutes looking around, but nothing really caught our eye. I turned around to pick up a game to look at, and by the time I put it down, I couldn’t see Emily.
I called for her, walking around the entire toy area, growing increasingly anxious. All of the worst-case scenarios started playing through my head. Had someone taken her? Was she gone forever? I started getting louder and louder, more and more worried.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a minute or two, a worker heard me calling and said that someone had found a little girl at the front of the store. I headed to where she pointed out, and there was Emily standing with another worker, looking only slighted concerned.
I was relieved that she had only wandered away; however I was also upset with how far she had gone and how silly her reasons for wandering were. We talked about bad guys taking little kids and how she needed to stay with me always at stores. I think she understood, but I don’t really know.
I love that little girl so much, and even the two or three minutes that I thought she might be gone were dreadful. It was really scary. And I think we’re done going to the mall for a while now. I can’t take another incident like that for a long while.
Has your little one ever gotten lost in a store? What did you do?
