It's just any other day...
I take my kids to the swarming playground, sunblock, hats, gigantic bag full of snacks.
He wants to go there, she wants to go here, and suddenly I wish I had dressed them in highlighter tops so I could easily spot them.
"Just stay there, don't go anywhere else".
I can see him by the tunnel, a few metres away, he starts to crawl through, and so I turn back to spin my daughter on some thing that would make me vomit. Don't be so overbearing, I think.
Everyone on social media gas fun at the park.
But there's so many people here...
"Faster Mummy, faster"
And everyone's moving like a maze around us...
Go FASTER Mummyyyy"
Where is he?
I've been doing progress checks looking up, but he is quick and I've missed wat direction he ran in.
There's water over there.
And a road just there.
Where is he?
Do all the adults here eve have kids? Oh god.
Where is he?!
I start to move, my heart punches against my ribs, I wonder if I should start yelling, should I call my husband? What would that do?
I'll start asking people, have they seen a boy in a navy top, brown hair, the most beautiful smile you ever did see, he knows our address, he knows my name, we have talked about strangers,
enough I hope.
Would he have run to the giant slide?
My head is spinning from child to child.
WHERE IS HE?!!
I grab my daughter, panic rising, my throat a blender, about to explode and then of course,
there he is.
Sitting in the middle of the tunnel, "don't go anywhere else"
Just like I said.
He wonders why I have tears as I hold him close (because for a second I lost you forever).
We stay there for another 45 minutes, as I learn how to breathe again, my hands still shaking when I hand them their ice creams at what really is, just any other day.
***
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