April Fools!

NOT! All I wanted to do over Spring Break was take Dylan to the San Diego Zoo. My son, the animal extraordinaire! I was so excited, like a little kid on Christmas morning, driving to the Zoo that day. We weren’t there 2 hours when it happened. We stopped for the monkeys. Mike took Dylan out of his stroller for a closer look. There were other little people standing there with him. I just shot the best picture of him and began to shoot the monkey walking across the beam. “Where’s Dylan?” I responded, “Right here.” When I pointed, he wasn’t there. Mike instantly ran up one way. We were in a fork in the road, with 4, count them 4 different ways my 3 year old son could have gone. I thought he was in line at the eatery we were across from. When he wasn’t there and Mike came back down that hill without him I felt like I was going to vomit! Cameron screamed and began crying. I parked Cameron with Peyton at the eatery. A family insisted we leave them with them, so I did. Another family, with lots of people, looked at Dylan’s picture and fanned out in all directions, including the escalator. I told everyone, he’s a toe head with a brown jacket on. Mike brought a park ranger to me, who called in security, and Mike was off again in a different direction. My worst nightmare, a nightmare I had gone through before with Cameron, at the same age! How was this happening? God please, please let him be okay. Let him be safe. He was gone 15 minutes, but it seemed like a freaking eternity! The ranger says we think we found him. I looked and said, “No, it’s not him.” The ranger looked at me as if I was insane. When I looked again, I screamed, “Yes!” He had ditched his jacket. I was looking for his brown jacket. I grabbed him and hugged him and asked him what was he thinking? “I go see the big orange fish Mama.” He wasn’t lost, we were. He was a 3 year old on a mission. He knew where he was going and we just hadn’t caught up. A teenage boy saw Dylan wondering by himself and asked him where his mom was. As he pointed down the hill he said, “My Mama down there.” The teenager then took Dylan to him Mom and Dad and they asked him the same question. Again his reply was, “My Mama down the hill.” So, hand in hand, the teenage boy with his family escorted Dylan down the hill. I was so grateful. Blessings all around. I tried to reach Mike on the phone, who seriously ran that park in 15 minutes, but he couldn’t hear it. When he got back to the point of origin and I said we had him, you could see the weight come right off his shoulders. We then traced Dylan’s steps to retrieve his jacket. At first we thought, did somebody try to take him and that’s how his jacket came off? But Dylan insisted he did it. He took it off because he got hot. Mike wonders if he passed him and didn’t realize it because he was without his jacket. Dylan made it all the way up that hill to the Lions and we never found his jacket until we went to the Lost and Found at the end of our day. By the time Dylan’s escapade was over, I was emotionally exhausted. I just wanted to go home and call it a day. So did hubby. As you know, we just can’t do that, so onwards we went. We kept Dylan locked in his stroller the rest of the time, and if he did get out, Daddy was holding him in his arms. Why are our sons so inquisitive? And where is their sense of fear? Scary.