Counting my blessings...

Happy Monday, everyone! We had a rather interesting weekend........

Friday afternoon, the boys and I headed up to Whitehall to meet Rick. There was a flag football game going on between the Montague Police Officers (the Fuzz) and the Montague Fire Department (the Fuzz Busters). We are good friends with the chiefs of each, so it was a lot of fun to watch. Afterwards, we went out to the parking lot to see that the Fire Department (who got shut out, by the way) had soaped up the Police Chief's (Chief Rob) squad car. Joshua was playing with the bubbles with Chief Rob's daughter, Morgan, and Logan wanted to play too. Rick was standing right there, talking to a couple of the officers while the kids were playing, I walked over to the car to clean some dirt off my shorts and when I came back around the car, I asked Rick where Logan was.

He was gone.

He had JUST been there, and he was gone - nowhere to be found. We searched for him for what seemed like forever (I don't even know how long - under 15 minutes, I would guess, but it felt a lot longer). We were in the parking lot, back by the football field. There were woods, and cars and people all over the place, and Logan was gone. I was doing really well for a while, and then I got closer and closer to panicking. I searched in the parking lot, I searched in the woods, I looked in the Port-A-Potty. There were cops and firefighters helping us look for him. He's never wandered away from us before.

I was so scared. Rick and I split up, I told Joshua to stay by the car and not move. After I had looked EVERYWHERE out in the parking lot, I headed toward the football field. Strangers we didn't even know were helping us look for him. As I was going in the gate, Rick was coming out.

He had Logan in his arms. Immediately the tears started running down my cheeks. Logan was crying in Rick's arms. I ran up to them, grabbed my son and held him so tight as I fought to not lose complete control.

Rick said he was sitting in the bleachers with his hands in his lap, right where we had been sitting. When Rick went up to him, the only thing Logan said was "Where's mommy?". Rick said "Probably looking for you." and Logan started to cry. When I was at the car, Logan didn't know where I was, so he went back to the last place he knew I was to try and find me. Amazing to me that in all those people, not a single one noticed a toddler walking around by himself. Especially since the game between the fire fighters and police had just ended...

The whole way home, Logan and I talked about how he can never wander away again.

We've never lost Joshua like that before - it was absolutely the worst feeling I've ever felt. It took everything I had to stay calm enough to look without losing it. And the longer I looked and didn't find him, the worse it got. Rick wasn't worried. He knew he was around there somewhere. I wish I had that kind of parenting attitude. Unfortunately for me (and my children), that's not my nature. I'm great in a crisis situation, as long as it doesn't involve my kids. When that happens, all bets are off. Thank God he was ok.

You can bet I've been counting my blessings more than normal this weekend.