Yesterday Marc and I had our first VERY real child disappearance experience, it was no fun while it was happening but looking back we can laugh a little about it now.
We were at the church for a multi-ward preparedness expo where we learned some very helpful things. I always feel like we are doing well until I go to one of those, then I have a slap of realization and spend the next several weeks really assessing our situation and trying to fix it. But back to the real story at hand. While we were at the expo Rachel and another little girl were playing on the stage with their princesses. We were not too concerned because we could still see her and we could still go to the different tables to get the information we needed. While we were talking to one man about gardening (and getting some much needed questions answered) the girl that Rachel was playing with came up to Marc holding Rachel's shoe and said "Have you seen Rachel? I can't find her." He politely excused himself taking Benjamin with him to see if he could find her behind the curtain on the stage or something. A few minutes later Marc came back with Benjamin but not Rachel. He handed me Benjamin while saying "I can't find her!" We enlisted some help from others in the building (6 in all) to help us find her. We figured we hadn't seen her for about 15 min before the girl came up to us. We spent the next 10 minutes looking in every room, every bathroom, every closet, every nook and cranny of that building, we even looked outside but couldn't find her anywhere! This really concerned us because there were a lot of people in the building and anyone could have walked in and walked out with her. Our hearts were beating like crazy and Marc was acting all crazy, I have never seen him so scared in the 7 years we've known each other. We did eventually find her, laying down on a bench by the Bishops office which is tucked away in a corner. When she saw us she started to cry! I picked her up, snuggled with her and we asked her what happened. After a few minutes of her crying she finally calmed down enough to tell us:
"The clock struck 12 so I had to run away. I lost my glass slipper and was waiting for the duke to put it back on my foot. Then I could marry the Prince."After that all we could do was laugh! In her little mind she was pretending to be Cinderella, and what is wrong with that? Absolutely nothing! Except for the fact that we couldn't find her and she almost gave us all a heart attack. Of course we had a talk with her about telling us where she is going to so mommy and daddy don't get worried. I'm glad that she has such a wonderful imagination, that we found her, that she was safe and that she didn't wonder outside. I am also very grateful for the help we had in finding her. I just hope that we never have to go through anything like that again, I don't know if our hearts can take the stress!
5 comments:
What a terrifying and yet strangly sweet story! I can only imagine the thoughts that went through your heads. That is one nightmare I hope none of us ever deal with.
I am glad like all good fairy tales it all turned out alright in the end!
What a imagination that little girl has! I know the panic feeling. Unfortunately, we've lost Toby more than once, and not because he was pretending to be a Prince. Glad it ended well.
ahhh.... poor parents. What a cute story but yes, frightening!! Glad you found her... what a sweet girl!
Oh man, I am so sorry! That is the worst feeling in the world. She is so cute though, how funny! Tears and all, she was just waiting for her prince. You guys make me tired reading your blog, but yeah keep up the great work!
I was in the hall at church with Gunnar in his pre-nursery days. I saw him crawl around the corner onto the stage steps as I chatted with someone. When I went to make sure he hadn't made it onto the stage he was gone! I panicked and looked everywhere. We finally found him in the nursery. Another ward member had taken him off the steps and taken him to the nursery "so he wouldn't get hurt." Yet, the "well-meaning" man failed to tell the child's mother! He said he couldn't find me--when I was only about 8 feet from the stage steps. He obviously didn't try very hard before giving up.
That wasn't too scary since we were in the church with just our ward. I've had 2 scary times with the girls in a museum and a store. It's the worst. I'm lucky to live in a small town now. People know each other.
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