"I Love To Go A-wandering . . ."

Evan was three and a cuter little kid you could find nowhere. What a personality he had even then. He was friendly, out-going and a charmer. People just loved him…

 

But that was nothing usual. Strangers had been stopping and starring at him from the ripe young age of nine and a half months when he could walk. They were astounded and fearful he might wander off. Siobhan, his mother would calmly showed them our ‘trick’ and sit him down. Evan never learned how to crawl. He couldn’t get up to his feet unless there was something close by that he could use to haul his little body to a standing position. Then … he was off…

 

Anyway, one day while stopping to eat lunch at the mall we got the shock of our lives when three year old Evan disappeared. Frantic Siobhan looked everywhere for him.

 

Evan was gone. Last time he was seen, he was leaving the bathroom with strict orders to go back to grandma at our table. The manager of the restaurant closed the store issuing an emergency code over the loud speaker.

 

They looked everywhere, under shelving, inside clothes racks and change rooms, upstairs, downstairs, in back storerooms and anywhere that could hide a three year old’s body. Every department had staff madly searching for this little boy. By this time, Siobhan was hyper ventilating…

 

Suddenly there he was. Calmly strolling back to the store holding the toy store lady’s hand.. Apparently, being a male child, he forgot where he was going and decided to go shopping. Luckily the toy store manager recognized him and after finding out where he had been before his ‘excursion’, she brought him back to us. That is a scary scenario that no one wants to repeat.

 

Thank goodness as children get older their ‘mommy magnets’ take over but at that young age I guess they aren’t completely operational.

 

What’s a ‘mommy magnet’, you ask? Well try walking with kids whose mother is ahead of you and see for yourself. You’ll be left in the dust as they seem to be connected to the parent and off they go. Luckily grandmas know their way around and eventually someone will look back to check . . . Right?