panic at the disco (bookstore)

today my heart stopped. not just a flutter. it stopped. chest pains. short of breath. tears on the brink. i lost him. i have had ohmyGodwhere'smychild brief bouts lasting one or two seconds. but this one was different. 30 seconds at least. i have never felt this way before. terrifying. now that my kids are fully mobile (think fast and furious) i have come up with strategies to keep them within eyeballs reach when in public venues. today i failed. i dressed them in the same color. black. since it is somewhat uncommon for toddlers. and i still lost one. here i am yapping about some stupid missing toys and today i missed a kid. C has a tendency to "stay put" if he finds something of interest. R never finds something of interest. so she is go go go. i was go go going after her. knowing C had found something of interest by way of an old school jack-in-the-box that had been modernized with a cute puppy-in-a-box instead of scary clown-in-a-box, i followed R to the rocking horse. then the bouncy balls. then the picture frames. oh shit. the picture frames. this calls for intervention. scoop. back to C. but now he's gone. ok he's got to be close. look. look. look. deposit R in stroller and snap securely. now i'm picking up the pace a little. now i'm running. frantically running around a bookstore knocking down other children with no remorse. just a "missing child" mutter as i go. notifying bookstore staff as i scamper. i am in a bookstore for cripe's sake. creepy crawlers hang out at bookstores. this is a known fact. now the tears are brimming. i am the worst mother ever. this is a bad made for tv movie. but meredith baxter birney is too old to play me. even rita wilson is too old to play me. oh God, it might be shannon doherty. bygones. then i see him. my sweet boy. nonethewiser that his mother is a bumbled jumble of a frenetic mess. he is calm. in the arms of a stranger (by the way. when does stranger danger come in to play? i mean i love that my kids love the world. kum ba ya. but the stranger love does make me a little nervous, particularly after this episode). so the stranger says C was in the other section pulling books off the shelf. i am sure this has happened to other people, i tell myself. and he is here now. but still. we're snapped in. and we're leaving the creepy scary evil confusing tangled jungle (bookstore) to which i vow ne'er to return. this would never happen at our library. it is a 10X13 space. and people know us. worst mother ever. i go to the elevator where i find our toddler rescue. and her four children. under five. this woman has four children under five. all present and accounted for. smiling gleefully. and she found my child. and she is a single mother. oh yeah. i'm awesome. i can't keep track of two and this woman keeps track of four under five plus one of mine. and she does it by herself. all the time.

this is cute but my child, at home especially, is much much cuter.