"You Scared My Heart"

This is what I have always said to O when she was little and she would hide from me, or walk away from me in the store. For some reason it was a visual she could get: love= hearts, I love her, she scared my heart that loves her, ... it made since to us. Anyway...

I lost Olivia in the Target once when she was about 4 and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I had stopped for 5 seconds to check out something stupid, I'm sure, at the end of the aisle and she took a detour down another. When I turned around and she wasn't standing right there, I started calling her name and looking all over. After not being able to find her right away, the whole place started swirling in slow-mo and I couldn't think straight. Thank God another nice Mommy recognized that "Holy Shit, Where Is My Kid?!?!?! Face", and we found her in the electronics section looking at Wiggles DVDs. (Damn, Wiggles.) After I found her, of course I hugged her and just kept saying, "You scared my heart. You sacred my heart!" I was so freaked out that I almost pushed an entire cart of groceries out the store without paying for them. Luckily Jas was there, took care of everything and drove us home. On the way I just started laughing hysterically. Like a crazy person. I couldn't stop. I was Looney-Tunes. And then I burst into tears and cried for the rest of the evening. So needless to say, I have been teaching Luke to stay here I can see him. But he is 2 and honestly, can't be trusted, as we learned yesterday.

I made persuaded Jas take Bubs with him to run a few quick errands. One of which was to the grocery. Now, I have trained the pants off Luke to behave and walk with me in the store. He knows not to go more than about 15 feet away from me, and he knows without a doubt! that he has to hold on to the cart as I push it through the parking lot back to the car. He has never tried to break free. There is something to be said for The Fear Of God. It works. For me at least.

But, when they got home, Luke walked through the doors and said, "I've vewy naw-dy boy." Jas came in all red in the face. What did he do?, I asked. Jas just looked blankly at me and said he ran from him in the parking lot. At 5 pm. The busiest, most hectic time there is. I think he was freaked out. Seriously. Here's the weird part: Jas said he was walking out of the store and both of his hands were full of the grocery bags. He was holding Luke's wrist and right as they stepped off the sidewalk, Luke broke free and started to run straight into the cross traffic. Jas said a car was coming right for him and all of a sudden this guy who was walking the other direction runs out, grabs Luke and gets back to the sidewalk before Jas can react. And guess who this hero was??? The older brother of one of Jas' best friends growing up. Small world. Thank goodness.

So needless to say, we were both a little shaky for the rest of the evening, it was the first time Jas had a "Scare my heart" moment, bless his heart. I think that is one of those building blocks of parenthood, though. It always seems like it takes one big scary thing to happen to teach you to do so many little things differently. I still feel really bad for him though. I know that knotted "What if?" feeling that stays inside of you for a long time. (I also feel a little bit bad for me too, because now I know he won't take Luke with him anywhere ever again. Boooo.)