Today was a long day.  We had our carpets shampooed so me and my mom took off with the boys at 9am and didn’t return until 7pm.  We ended up at the Rueben H. Fleet Science Center.  The boys were having a blast.  They have this new Kids City that was a lot of fun, especially for kids under the age of 5.  We made our way through most of the center when the worst thing ever happened.  I lost BoBo.

NayNay & BoBo were playing with some air and ping pong ball thing.  The things that fascinate them.  Well Mr. A. went around the corner to look at something.  He hollered at me to “come see.”  I peeked around the corner for 15 seconds and when I turned back to the boys, BoBo was gone!  Nay was just playing with the air but his brother was nowhere in site.

I started frantically searching around the immediate area.  Figured he just went around the other direction.  He was nowhere.  I sent Nay over with his big brother to play at this entertaining exhibit.  My mom was in the bathroom.  I couldn’t leave the 2 until she came back.  I was just going around and around looking, hoping he would pop out from behind something.  He was just vanished!  I left the two boys to go look down a hallway and into another exhibit.  He was still nowhere.  I kept going back to the other boys.

Finally, my mom came out.  I just told her that BoBo was gone.  Her face went blank and asked what she should do.  I told her to watch the other two so I could search.  I have to say about 10 minutes must have passed.  I don’t know.  Maybe it was only 2 minutes but it seemed like an eternity.

I headed through the gift shop towards the entrance.  I asked the kid there if he had seen a little blond haired boy with black shirt and black pants.  He immediately called for someone on his radio.  Some supervisor guy came out and started ushering me into the center of the room.  I didn’t want to go!  It was a bit of a blur.  But he was saying something, “come over here, what does he look like?”  He started to say something on the radio when I saw him.

He was upstairs.  I saw him on the balcony.  He had a ball and he was laughing.  Playing.  Completely oblivious to the terror in his mommy’s heart.

I started crying.  I told the man, “there he is!”  I yelled his name and he just yelled back “HI mommy!”

I said, “Get down here right now!”

He toddled down the stairs and when he got to me I scooped him up and hugged him so tight and started crying.  I told him he scared me.  He just said “me not scare you mommy, hahaha.  I play.”

I didn’t put him down for a long time.

The people at the Space Center were wonderful.  After I could listen to him again, he explained that they have people in every room.  He was about to put out an APB on the little lost boy, they would have locked the doors and they would have found him.  They have the mom’s go to the center of the room because it’s the best place to see all the balcony walk ways.  They were so wonderful and I wish I had gotten the guys name so I could have thanked him properly.  But it was a blur and I don’t even think I said “thank you.”

So that was my day.  A really great, fun day with the boys.  Only tarnished by being absolutely terrified for about 10 minutes.