Code Cameron

Lost Cam at a store in the mall the other day. Mitch and I were taking turns watching him, he was right with us, and then he was gone. Gone about 50 feet from where we'd been standing, DOWN THE ESCALATOR. Suddenly, people, exits, riff-raff were everywhere.

Very truly, I thought I'd never see him again.

We fanned out across this store, yelling for him. Nothing, obviously, because he was downstairs. I found his sippy cup about 15 feet away. It was minutes of not being sure if I should vomit, keep looking, scream to everyone to look for him. Fortunately, a shopper saw him head down, passed him off to a shop worker, who brought him back up.

I started sobbing when I saw him. It was awful. Got to the car, sobbed again. I've never been so scared in all my life. Some of the moms I have met here have been kind of envious he's so confident, but the kid is a nightmare. He just goes and doesn't look back. I've got the harness, the wrist strap, he likes to hold hands when we go places...we turned for seconds. It was a lesson learned that you can't trust the little turd for nothin'. He's in serious lockdown now, though. Any thought he had of public freedom is so history. Henry the 8th history. Magna Carta history. Neanderthal Man history.

After telling the story to a friend, she said it's hard because you want to remain calm and not be that person who freaks out. I said, I was that person. It took me about three seconds to know something was seriously wrong, and I was screaming through the store and shouting at workers. It's been about two weeks and thinking about it still upsets me.