All By Myself

We lost Ethan this weekend! ... at the mall!! I never truely panicked, but I was close.
Friends ask me all the time... "How is it with 3 kids??" My answer spans from "Don't do it!" to "Well, we're all healthy" (this is a rarity and something to celebrate!) to "hhmm today was good" to "Ya know, we're doing really good this week". Its a moment by moment answer. But, I've never had to say that I lost a kid.

So we were out for a nice family outing. This includes a walk through the mall and dinner at Wahoo's http://wahoos.com/. We love it. After dinner, I take Ella to the bathroom. We're about to wash hands when I hear Devon pop open the door and yell "Sarah, is Ethan with you?" aaahhhh!!!! No, he is NOT with me. I grab Ella by the hand and drag her out of the bathroom and jog along Devon to get the low down as we have our eyes peeled. I go left, he goes right.

I look back and forth, nothing. Ethan isn't close, so then you really start to worry. How far could he get? Glance down the escalator. Nothing.

I turn back around and at the same time I see a nice young true citizen of a fellow jogging over toward me. He said "...are you looking for...." and held out his hand about waist high. "YES!" I answered. He said "does he look like?...." "Blond? YES!" He says, I think he's in the men's restroom.

(Aha! That makes sense.) "Can you help me get him out?" I know Devon is searching the other side of the mall and not sure how far away. The kid answered, yes, and I think he felt relieved too. I saw Devon, flagged him down, and jogged over toward the restrooms. As Ella and I stand there waiting outside the men's room for Ethan to come out, she asked patiently "Mommy, can I wash my hands now?" I look down and her other palm still has it cupped full of soap. Poor thing - I drug her out of the women's room before she could turn the water on.

Ethan was so proud and smiling. After the reunion, he says "I go potty all by myself!" I asked him "did you actually go potty?" He answered "Yes!... I pooped!" still smiling. oh my. Well, thank you nice young fellow for your civil service.