The one where he wasn't there.

There's nothing quite as heart stopping as running through the aisles in a store, calling frantically for your child who is no where in sight.

We went to Canadian Tire to buy a tent last night. Because in order to take the boys camping, we need something slightly more spacious than the old 3 person dome, especially when children turn into starfish as they sleep. The boys were in full wrang mode, it was late in the day and we hadn't had supper yet. I ran into a coworker and we chatted for a minute, the whole time I had one eye on Mr. Felix, who was running full tilt to the end of the aisle. I saw him turn the corner, yelled my goodbyes and went to head him off by running down the next aisle.

He wasn't there.

He wasn't in the next one. Or the next one. Or at the automotive desk at the end of that corridor. Or in their stock room. My voice got louder and louder, the staff seemed to just look at me dumbly. I thought I heard a far off voice call, "I have him", but I was in panic mode and didn't dare venture too far from where I'd seen him - what if he was hiding, giggling, and about to run out the front door if I turned my back? Or what if I'd imagined it and dropped my guard, just in time for some nefarious bad guy to smuggle him out the building? Finally, a staff member came over and asked if someone had gotten away from me. Um. Yeah. So he started looking, too. And getting other staff involved. Finally I found Jay.

And Jay had Felix. He told me he'd heard me yelling and called out that he had him but didn't want to keep screaming through the store. So he let me keep yelling and get the staff involved, I guess. Thanks, hubs. I ran back up front to tell the guy we had him, and then went back for details.

Jay and Elliot were in hardware when Felix came marching down the back wall. Little stinker doubled back when I cut over to the next aisle. He ran straight down to the back wall and then took off towards the farthest corner (so, diagonal to me), when he stumbled over the rest of his family.

He's taken off in stores before. There have been other 'holy shit' moments. But this one was the longest, I think. And yet again, I want to get out the toddler leash and tie him to me.

Thank goodness he has such a forgivable face.

Birthday cupcake. Nom nom nom.