The Adventures of FrogBoy

Last Thursday, I took the boys to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. No biggie. It was a quick little trip that should have been completely uneventful. I did mention that I took the boys, though, right?

We got everything we needed and Spanky decided he needed to look at some things in the boys department. As usual, FrogBoy parked himself underneath a display rack and read a book. This is not unusual for him, as he likes being in tight enclosed places, especially if we'll be shopping for a few minutes.

Now before anyone thinks I'm a horrible mother, I kept my eye on the child. Constantly. I would look, he would be there, we'd move, he'd move with us. Everything was perfect in Fitzgerald Land. Until I turned around and FrogBoy was gone.

I'm not talking gone as in I couldn't find him for 30 seconds and then I realized he was in the next aisle. I'm talking GONE. Spanky and I started calling him. I knew this was a futile effort, as FrogBoy enjoys hiding almost as much as he enjoys breathing, but we did it. You never know what you'll do when you're in a slight panic.

My nerves were frazzled. It quickly became obvious that my child was missing. MISSING. In Wal-Mart. This was so not good.

I left Spanky (remember the part about not thinking clearly in a crisis?) and ran up to the front of the store, my eyes on the bathrooms and front doors the entire time. I've seen enough cop shows to know where the freaky people take their kidnap victims. I grabbed an associate and told her I'd lost my little boy. She was relatively calm and suggested we could page him. As I blurted out, "He's autistic; he may not respond to a verbal command," her eyes grew wide and she was on the loudspeaker calling a Code Adam before I finished the word "autistic." The doors were all locked and associates fanned out all through the store in search of FrogBoy. I love Wal-Mart.

I ran back to the boys department. Spanky was still there, still searching, still no sign of my baby. A wonderful lady in a fur coat stopped me to see if it was my child we were looking for; she offered to help. People stopped shopping and started looking. About 1 minute after I got back to Spanky, an announcement was made to cancel the Code Adam and for me to meet an associate in electronics.

Once in electronics, I came face-to-face with FrogBoy. There he stood, cute as could be. Our reunion went something like this:
FrogBoy: "I was looking for you."
Me: "I was looking for you, too."
FrogBoy: "I found a Lego."

Fantastic. I nearly had heart failure. The good news was he didn't realize how bad it could have been. The bad news was he didn't realize how bad it could have been. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or just collapse.

Come to find out, FrogBoy had gotten turned around when he was trying to follow me and he couldn't figure out where he was. He wandered until he made it to the toy department (in case anyone doesn't know, that's the TOTAL opposite side of the store from where we were). He admitted later that he was scared, but he also wanted me to know that he'd found a bunch of new Legos that he'd like for his birthday (in June).

It was a rough night. We count ourselves as blessed. And Wal-Mart is my new most favorite place in the world (frankly, it was pretty close already).