Well, today was quite the grocery shopping experience. I'd gotten all my produce and began to make my rounds through the aisles. Noah is in the shopping cart and Mason next to me. I was down the Rice aisle grabbing the SAME box of rice I always get (I WASN'T distracted), I throw it in the cart, look up and... Mason is gone! I'm not too alarmed because he does wander a little but still I rush my cart to the end of the aisle. He's Not to be seen anywhere!! I am still trying to remain calm as I look down the next few aisles. I can't find him! I walk around aimlessly for about 7-10mins. with NO sign of Mason. At this point I'm crying and decide to go to customer service. Where they announce a "CODE ADAM" and ask me for a description of what he's wearing. I'm crying so much I can barely describe it. Luckily, I remembered everything he was wearing.
So I'm waiting at customer service feeling stupid and useless and I ask the lady if I can go keep looking for him. A WalMart employee accompanies me to help. We didn't get very far before I see some nice lady walking with Mason, who by the way is smiling and carrying a feather duster! He wasn't worried or upset one bit! The nice lady said she was looking at the Toilet Paper when he popped his head up from behind the boxes of TP and was dusting the area! (The TP aisle was like 8 rows down from where I had been by the rice!)
I am really grateful that I found him and that he wasn't traumatized ONE bit! Me on the other hand... I was totally embarrassed, felt like a bad mom, and kept picturing him being kidnapped or running out of WalMart into the parking lot.
1 year ago
So sorry! I am glad that it turned out OK. It is crazy that we always jump to worst case scenario.
ReplyDeleteThat is the WORST feeling in the world. You ARE NOT a bad mother! I'm sure everybody has done that a few times(like me!) Dylan disspeared for just a few minutes one time and all those bad thoughts go through your mind, it's horrible!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry- how scary. You are NOT a bad mom, that happens to almost everyone. Last year we were at Fry's & Jeff went to get eggs while I was at in line. Colter followed him. I thought Jeff knew, but he didn't. When he came back w/o Colter, I freaked out. Literally 2 seconds later a lady walked in front of us w/ Colter trying to locate parents. Thank goodness for nice people!
ReplyDeleteSo sorry! I would have been devastated also!!! I had one experience close to that with Hallie, but found her with in a minute. I was freaking out even at that, so I can't even imagine how that felt to take so long to find him!!! Glad it ended well:)
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to come Wed, but not sure yet if I can! I hope so :)
Oh what a horrible experience. Sorry that it happened to you. Brody runs off a lot and with autism many children aren't aware of many dangers that are normal for other children so we don't go out too much. So glad to hear that it ended happy. I would have cried too - a lot!!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness Shelly! I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I would die. Lucas did that at Disneyland of all places and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. No one thinks your a bad mom, kids are pretty sneaky! I'm glad it turned out the way it did of course and I have to laugh a little that he had a feather duster and was in the toilet paper! You'll laugh at it someday!
ReplyDeleteThat's the worst feeling in the world isn't it! And stores are so great about taking action with the Code Adam thing in place.
ReplyDeleteBut I gotta say, you must have Mason well trained for him to want to help out and dust the store displays! Maybe Walmart will hire him!! ;-)