I remember the day my son got lost: Weekly Writing Challenge

I remember the day when my son, YH was lost in the shopping mall.  It was a frantic search for him.  He was only 1+ years old then.

We went to an arcade (an entertainment centre) in a shopping mall.  My girl, XX, 3 years old then, was playing at some kiddie station.  YH was stomping on some step-on-the-buttons station a metre away.  We have 6 adults, kel, me and the 4 grandparents around these 2 toddlers. The adults were chatting away while keeping 12 EYES on the kids.  The arcade was noisy as usual, a mix of lousy orchestra playing game station music.  The little ones were having great fun hitting buttons and stepping on gears away with no tokens being deposited into the machines.

YH was walking about and running his unsteady steps from one station to the next.  Everything seemed normal till I suddenly realized that in my sight radar, there was only one toddler moving about. Where’s the other one??

For what seemed like 5 hours, the next 5 seconds were a frantic scatter of all of us searching for YH.  My first thought was to run to the main entrance of the arcade in case he ran out.  But my worse fear was him being kidnapped by somebody.  I imagined a man carrying him  with one hand over his mouth while my boy struggled and cried.  This thought made me crazy!  Then, alas, kel came looking for me 5 minutes later, and told me YH was checking out some station behind a drop down curtain!  Whew! I let out a sigh of relief! If you ever have such experience of finding your child lost, you would have been able to imagine my roller coaster emotions!  Hearing the good news, I ran back to my dear boy and hugged him tightly.  I fought back my tears.

The whole episode was only about 5 minutes but it could have been forever if he was really kidnapped away!  Having many people around with 12 eyes on the kids is not as safe as you think it to be.  I would have thought you are looking after the kids and you would have thought I am looking after them.  In the end, nobody is actually paying attention to the kids’ whereabouts!  This incident took place in our home country, Singapore which is one of the safest country in the world.  Yet, as parents, we cannot let our guards down when it comes to kids’ safety.  Even till now, YH who is already 6 years old, still wanders off in the crowd.  It always drives me crazy to search for him.  XX will always tell us where she is going if she is going to be out of sight from us.  Boys being boys, will always need that extra attention, but I will not let my guard down for my girl too. 

Have you ever encountered such a frantic experience of searching for your kids?  Share with me!

This post is written in response to Weekly Writing Challenge: I Remember

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