The Day I Lost 2 Boys

So yesterday morning started with a glance through Thursday's flyers and noticing there were some swim suits on sale.  I set the kids to working at tidying up the house, bribing Leah for some extra help with the hint that we would look for a new suit for her as well.

Got to the mall at 10:30, gleefully taking note of the empty parking lot and thinking swim suit shopping was going to be a BREEZE with such an empty mall. (remember that)  It was with sinking heart that I noticed the OPEN sign was still off.  With a sigh I herded the kids around the corner to a mall entrance to see if we could find anything open.  The women arranging shoes at Payless informed me that the mall didn't open till 11:00 but did tell me that Zellers was open.

Now Zellers happens to be on the opposite end of our (small) mall so I told the kids we would go over there and see if there were any running shoes for school.  Off we went, Cara and Cody holding on to my hands, Leah, braids a swinging, marching off ahead and Sam and Cam jumping from tile to tile carefully avoiding all the purple squares.  The mall was empty and echo-y and there weren't too many people around to hurt so I left them to it.  They were lost in their own world...haha.

As I approached the second mall entrance I realized the Zellers doors were still shut to the mall and I would have to go all the way around outside to get there and decided that London Drugs was as good a place to stop as any.  Too bad for Sam and Cam.  They didn't get the memo.

We were partway up the coridor to LD when Leah said, "hey, where's Sam and Cam?"  I huffed and turned around, aggravated that they weren't paying attention and following me.  Only, in the 30 seconds it had taken me to notice they weren't behind us, they had completely disappeared.  I pictured them hiding under the tarps from the many kiosks that were still closed and thought about giving them a good shake. But nothing was moving and nobody was giggling.  They had vanished into thin air.

Honestly, how do you lose 2 noisy boys in a completely locked up, quiet mall.  I was flabergasted but not too worried yet.  I started hollering their names but the only response I got was my own echo bouncing off glass doors.  I started walking faster and went around back to the washrooms.  It didn't make sense that someone could grab them both without them making a peep for me to hear but it also didn't make sense to ignore the possibility either.

Now there's something you should know about the mall toilets.  They're automatic flush and it wasn't until later when I had all my five ducklings in a row again that I got this funny mental picture.
I came speeding up to the men's bathroom entrance and bellowed, "Samuel" and all I heard was a toilet flush.  No struggling, no little boy trying to escape or call for help.  But that toilet flush...I probably scared some poor guy so bad he jumped straight up only to have his toilet flush as he cleared the seat.

Well, no boys and I was now getting close to 5 minutes without them and I started losing some of my calm.  I headed back to where I had started to see if they were there and when they were not I started running for a security guard I had seen chatting with a lady back at the place where we had first started.  He took a description and started calling on his radio.  We were getting closer to 10 minutes when I told him I was going out the exit to see if the boys had gone outside and maybe headed for the van.  It wasn't until I got out the door that I saw Zellers and thought that maybe Sam, being a reader, headed for Zellers when he couldn't find me.  Asking a couple of people that were standing there oh-so-calmly in the sun if they had seen two boys, my heart beat slowed a little again when a gentleman said yes, two boys had run past into Zellers on their own.
 
Off we went again, Cara and Cody in tow wailing away.  Cody was carrying his crocs because, although they're super cool ones, they hurt his feet to wear (he's the one that still insists on wearing them) and Cara wailing that she was tired.  The air was hot and humid and we were a miserable lot.

Just inside the Zellers doors I saw the security guard talking to the busy cashier.  No sign of the boys there and my confidence deflated a little.  Zellers was busy and now I had quite a few people looking at me and my messy lot of upset littles with a look that seemed to say, "she has those 3 kids AND she's still missing two more?!"  I told the guard I was going to walk around a bit and set off at a trot calling, "SAMUEL!"  only to have Cara echo after me, "CAMERON!"  And while there were the glances of sympathetic mothers who have been there done that, they couldn't help but smile at Cara's call.

No boys so I headed back towards the security guard.  He was standing there talking to a sales associate and as I got a short, "they haven't shown up yet" update a second sales associate approached.  "Two boys?" she asked, "they're at the customer service desk in the back."  I grabbed her in a big hug and went dashing back towards the electronics.  Cara and Cody were back to wailing that I was going too fast.

I came around the corner as yet another sales associate was just picking up the phone.  Even the customers recognized the paniced/relieved look on my face and she called down the aisle, "you Leanne?"

Now, after gathering those two boys into a very tight squeeze and wiping the tears that came when Cam saw me, I scolded them with a, "now I'll never live to be 90!"  And with profuse thanks to the people who had helped we headed out of Zellers.  Indeed, as we headed back into the heat I felt 10 years older.

I had a trail of little boys following behind me and a lot of "stay close to Mom, you don't want to get lost!"  Kind faces smiled acknowleding my fear and joy.  But none topped the lady who said, "I'm glad you found them.  They're such polite boys, they said thank you so nice as I held the door for them to get into Zellers!"

Now, that should have been a great note to stop on and really, I should have headed straight out the door but I still hadn't finished what I had come there to do, so with 5 kids in tow I headed back to Sears.

Big mistake.  Those two polite boys ganged up with the remaining boy and 2 girls and started a game of hide and seek tackle tag (can I have a been-there-done-that Moms? I'm sure mine aren't the only kids that think Sears clothing racks = obstacle course/gym).  It was loud, it was noisy, it was frustrating and it was embarassing.  Isn't it amazing how the relief and feelings of "I'll never let you out of my sight again!" so quickly turn to, "all of you, sit down, don't move and don't make a peep or there will be big trouble when we leave this place!" to thoughts of "I wonder if I take this red clearance tag and put it on a forehead I'll get an offer?!"

Not really but I couldn't leave you disillusioned with the idea that my kids are polite and super good in the mall leaving all the shoppers wishing their kids were just like mine.  Not when they actually bumped into a Sears sales associate and actually knocked her into a clothes rack.  Yep, they actually did and they even tried to take off without apologizing.  I'm just thankful it wasn't the lady who held the door open.  There might as well be one lady telling the story of cute polite (lost) boys she met at the mall this morning when there's at least a dozen telling the opposite tale!

Well, we got out of the mall with a swimming suit that I wore for the day only to find out it was slightly defective so guess what I did today?!!!
Sure did, went to Winners, Sport Check and Sears to find another swim suit.  But this time? This time I corralled two in a buggy for the majority of the time.  At least it helped a bit!  You know what I left that mall parking lot thinking?  "Hey Self, there's a reason you went for almost 4 years without taking kids into the mall.  What on earth were you thinking to pack 3 visits into a one week span!!!???"

All fun aside?  There were many prayers of thanksgiving to our gracious Father who kept those two boys safe.  It doesn't take much browsing through the news to know how easily it could have been different.  To know for too many moms the end of the story isn't so happy. 

Psalm 121
I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
² My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
⁸ The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

that's what we read with our lunch!!


ps.  Sam's version of the events went something like this.

"When we stopped playing we didn't see you anymore so we just went out the door.  When we got outside I saw Zellers so we ran there and went looking for the shoes.  We looked for a little bit but we didn't see you so we walked around for a little bit and then went back to the shoes.  When we still didn't find you we found a lady that works there to help us."  Short and simple.  Not too many words to cover a 15 minute period of time.

When I asked him how he knew the lady he asked was a lady that worked at the store he said, "that's easy.  They all have that blue stuff over their eyes."

That would be a almost 7 year old's observation.  The lady that helped him indeed had dramatic blue eye shadow but I never would have thought that was her hi-I-work-at-Zellers identification badge!