Park Panic

Spring Break...are you so sick of hearing about it? Ok, one more story. Angi and I wanted to get our kids together over Spring Break. We threw out several ideas...museum, feeding the ducks, or riding the train and playing in the park. Since we're both pregnant right now and like to be pregnant partners in crime every time we have a kid apparently, we decided we liked the thought of sitting on a train.


And it was a good idea. The weather was again a day the birds were singing and bragging about.

 
Poor sweet little Reese...the only girl, but she didn't act like it ruined any of her fun.

And even though Angi and I might be accused of planning our due dates to be synchronized (her twins are 11 days older than Campbell and our babies now are due 10 weeks apart), I swear that we absolutely did not plan for Tucker and Campbell to play the role of twins with their matching outfits. By the way, we may be best friends but we also didn't plan our due dates to be near the same time.

After our train ride we set up a picnic and it was super adorable and cute but Angi and I were both so busy with peeling fruit, keeping grass off sandwiches and taking turns taking our kids to the nearest tree to use the bathroom. Shhh, don't tell. But I don't do port-a-potties and especially when it's across the park. One of the many reasons that having boys has its perks. So I don't have any pictures of all that (thank goodness, right?).

We were definitely not the only ones hearing the birds bragging about the weather. It was a madhouse at the playground. Angi looked at the playground and said, "Playgrounds like this make me so nervous. There's just so many people here," and proceeds to tell me a story of one of her friends that lost her autistic son at this same park for over an hour. So I gave the boys the speech, "We stick together and no running off." At first there were a couple of runaway attempts but the boys were great about sticking with me. It definitely wasn't one of those leisurely moments of sitting on the park bench watching your kids play...not even close. We were all hands on deck at the park.



Aaaaannd right about then my camera ran out of juice. But with as busy as I was trying to keep up with the boys, it was for the best. Campbell and Tucker wanted to hang with the big boys and had no realization that they're two years old trying to climb the biggest slide on the playground. As I'm trying to make sure Tucker makes it up the ladder safely, that took a whopping 10-15 seconds, I look around to find Campbell and can't find him. I start calling for him sweetly but can't find him. Then I start looking in every tunnel, ladder and slide I can put my eyes on and still can't find him and it doesn't help that every time I think I see him, it's actually Tucker wearing Campbell's same shirt.

I call to Angi and tell her that I can't find Campbell. I bet I looked like a frantic turkey running around. Now my heart is completely pounding out of my chest. Mama bear instinct is in full effect. I ran to Angi, throw her my camera with my voice shaking with complete fear. I just start screaming his name not even caring how crazy I look or sound. I must have been as white as a ghost because a complete stranger asks what kind of shirt he's wearing and luckily I could just point to Tucker and say he's wearing THAT shirt. Angi is still level-headed enough to actually focus instead of just running around like a chicken with their head cut off.

She points to him on a completely different playground and spotting a 2 year old on a monstrous piece of playground equipment with 100 kids around is like looking at a "Where's Waldo?" book. I ran and had one of those feelings of wanting to hug him and yell at him. But the hug came first followed by a very stern, "Don't ever do that again to me" serious discussion. The whole episode of not finding him lasted literally about 60 seconds but I swear a mama can think some very disturbing and scary thoughts in 60 seconds.

I kept my eyes on my boys and if for one second they were out of my sight, I called their name. Nolan never seeing his mommy so scared in his life, knew to stay close by and every time I called his name, he would reassuringly say, "I'm right here, Mommy."

I'm so thankful that everything turned out ok but I never want to experience that kind of panic again in my life. There were extra doses of snuggling and prayers given after such an event.

Minus that 60 seconds of paralyzing fear, the day was a hit believe it or not. We all had a great nap that day for sure!