MGM Scare

09/12/06
Well, it happened. Christopher, our youngest, got away from us when we were at Disney. MGM Studios to be specific. I don't mean he ran down the way a bit but we could still see where he was, and had to go get him… although he DID do that a few times… I mean he really got away from us. Out of sight… away…. Oh-my-God-"Code-Adam" GONE. Funny thing is it all happened so fast I don't know who was to blame. Not that whose fault it was matters, of course! It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Everyone has heard those stories on the news where the parents say "he was RIGHT here, and then he was just gone… it all happened so fast." You sit there silently thinking to yourself, "HOW can that happen? Weren't you watching your child?" Come on admit it… I am one of those people as well. But after this experience, I have to tell you, they probably were watching their children but the child just got away from them that fast.

How does that happen to a veteran mom of two energetic boys who should expect the unexpected? I wish I had an answer other than "he just ran away before I knew what had happened."

We'd just done our "you watch one while I go pee and then we'll swap" routine. We were standing just outside of a bathroom by the water fountains, deciding where to go next. Christopher, having just gotten a dry diaper, wasn't in the stroller; he was skipping around playing with Daniel. In fact, neither of them were more than 20 feet from Dan and me the entire time they were playing. Christopher tripped over Daniel and scraped his hand, I picked him up to wash it off in the water fountain, and then put him on the ground and told him to go to his Daddy… who was no more than 10 feet from me. He started that way, I turned back around to get a sip of water in the fountain and when I turned back, Dan said, "Where's Christopher?" I think my heart momentarily stopped. I stupidly answered, "YOU don't have him?!?" "Uhm, no, I thought YOU had him."

I dispatched Daniel to the ladies' bathroom, which was the closest place Crisper could have gone out of our sight. I quickly scanned the open courtyard area. He can run fast, but not so fast that we wouldn't be able to still see him running since it was a large area. But he wasn't there. I ran to a cast member (Disney's PC term for "employee") and said we were missing our son, gave him a very brief description; brown hair, brown eyes, 18 months old, yellow shirt, red shorts, blue Crocs.

The man just stood there looking at me like he didn't hear me. So I turned around and ran to the bathroom to help Daniel. While I was in the bathroom, I heard Dan yelling to me that they'd found him. He'd been inside a store that was in front of the area where we were sitting. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to look in there first since that was where all the toys were… but it didn't.

A very nice cast member came walking out with him and asked if he belonged to anyone. It couldn't possibly have been more than 2 minutes for all this to occur, but for me it was an eternity. It took me a full 10 minutes to breathe normally again. I was absolutely terrified. Horrible thoughts of kidnappers, child molesters and foreign adoption-ring scams came to my mind.

I guess what scared me most (besides the aforementioned unmentionables) was that we each thought the other had him. I consider us with-it, informed sort of parents. At least, I thought we were. Don't we ALWAYS know where our children are? Don't we always have at least one eye on them? Aren't we always able to hear them chattering and giggling? Aren't we always aware of the various dangers, even the extremely improbable ones like being hit on the head by frozen pee from an airplane? I make light of the situation, but I was absolutely terrified. In those brief few seconds, he had simply just disappeared.

I honestly have no idea what Dan was doing while I was busy panicking. I very vaguely recall him saying things like "now, just calm down, he's right here somewhere" and "Cari, take a breath, he can't have gone far."

After we found him and I was breathing normally again, Dan jokingly asked me how old Christopher was. It was only then that I realized I'd told them he was 18 months old when he'll really be 2 next week. Yikes! You know I was panicked when I couldn't even tell them his correct age.

Anyway, this has been a lesson to me… next time we go anywhere, Crisper will be inside the stroller or shopping cart or buckled into something where he can't get away from me even if I have to strap him to my back. That sounds so mean, I know, but it's better than the alternative.

PS- For those of you who don't know what a "Code Adam" is, it's where you tell a store associate or someone of that nature that your child is missing, and they lock down the store, close all exits, dial 911, and check every single child leaving the store. If your child is still in the store, they'll be able to find them. It was implemented after Adam Walsh, John Walsh's (the America's Most Wanted guy) son, was kidnapped from a shopping mall and subsequently murdered in Hollywood, Florida in July of 1981.