Worst 30 Min of my Life

I am used to Miriam disappearing pretty much wherever we go. I understand how her brain works and where I'm most likely to find her. I know when she's MIA and when she's AWOL. I know this because she is lost 90% of any venture that involves leaving our home and 40% of all home time. This is the way she is.

That is why I took Cowen to run errands with me this morning. He never gets lost. He always stays right by me. He is a stress-free errand mate.

I found out the downside of that today. When they called mall security and had every adult employed in the mall looking for Cowen. When a child who never goes missing goes missing, it is much harder on the psyche.

I stopped briefly at Sears to pick up some vacuum bags, then I got distracted by some flannel sheets on sale and then some cute baby books on sale. I'm like that. Cowen sat down in a car seat on display and looked through his new book. That was my mistake--I let him take The Three Musketeers in with him, and he was riveted by the pictures (they had swords, after all) and only paying minimum attention to me. I told him I was going to look at the little boy suit section so I would know if it was a good place to shop for Cowen for his next suit. It is. But Cowen didn't follow. I'm not used to checking on him. I didn't check, he didn't follow. I eventually noticed and returned to where he had been, but he was gone. I glanced around for him, but didn't see him and figured he was looking for me and he'd find me if I stayed in one spot. So I went and paid for the sheets. Still, no Cowen.

I had the lady page him and tell him to return to the escalators. I waited. No Cowen. I tried to think like Cowen. He wouldn't cry like Miriam and attract attention from nice people who would see her hair and return her to me. He might ask for help, but I figured he would try to solve the problem. I ran to my van, pretty convinced that's where I'd find him. No Cowen.

When I returned to the lady and asked her to page Cowen again, she said he'd been missing too long and had every single Sears employee stop what they were doing except one or two cashiers and start looking for Cowen. I wasn't even embarrassed. It had been too long and I didn't know where he would have gone.

Minutes went by. A sweet lady told me they would start looking. Numerous other customers joined in the search. I'm not kidding--by that time I was pretty scared because it had been so long.

They called mall security and got all the security people looking for Cowen. I could hear Sears employees talking as they passed each other. "Have they found him?" "He's wearing cowboy boots?" "How old is this kid?" "Guaranteed he's at the play place." "He's not, we already checked." Awful. Awful. Awful.

Finally, a lady came up to me and said, "You're the Mom, right?" They made me stay in one spot so they could find me when they found him. "We think we found him." As we hustled downstairs to where they had Cowen, I heard them announcing all over the mall, "Attention, mall customers and employees, the lost child has been found and we are taking his parent to him now." Again--no embarrassment, just an intense hope that it really was him. This was COWEN, for heaven's sake--he NEVER loses himself.

He was pretty relieved when he saw me--almost as relieved as me. The security guard said he found Cowen running frantically around the parking lot looking for the van and that he was "pretty upset." I bet. It made me feel better that I was right--Cowen's a problem-solver and the van was a logical way to solve the problem. If I'd only walked around to the main parking lot I might have seen him.

We had a long talk about staying put when you're lost on the way home, but I hope he never has cause to remember the advice.

Seriously, the longest 30-45 minutes of my life.