Bad Parent Awards

I feel like I reached a milestone of parenthood today: I lost my child in a store!! To be fair, though, it was totally his fault.

Here's the story: Today Sasha and I were able to meet Regan at the KMCC (mall) on base for lunch. After Regan went back to work, Sasha and I went to pick up a few things for our home-preschool adventures (which I may or may not discuss here, depending on how it goes haha). As we were walking into the store, Sasha decided to run ahead of me, as he often does. No big deal...except that he didn't stop. I didn't chase him because 1) he usually stops and waits for me when he thinks I can't see him anymore and 2) I assumed he had run to the cosmetics because we always go there first to look at nail polish and the last I could see of him before he disappeared, he was about 5 feet away from there. But then of course he wasn't there, or anywhere around there. I spent about 5 minutes looking around in clothing racks thinking he was hiding from me before I got nervous enough to hit an "assistance" button and get some help. After another 5 minutes of waiting with no sign of anyone coming, I finally walked up to a register and told the cashier that my kid had run off. She was kind enough to inform me that a child had been found and she called to double check that he matched the description I gave. Sure enough, it was Sasha. He had SOMEHOW managed to get himself to the complete opposite side of the store without me spotting him.

Anyway, I went and picked him up and spent the rest of the shopping trip gripping his hand tightly and calling for him loudly whenever he wasn't within 2 feet of me. When we went to check out, the cashier looked at Sasha and said "I told you we could find her" which led me to realize that she must have been the one who found him or something. I made some joke about it and then tried not to talk about it anymore! SO EMBARRASSING!

So yeah, bad mom award pinned to my jacket now. Go me!