Kai was especially adorable on Saturday. At least, for lunch.
“What do you want for lunch?” I asked.
“A game lunch!” he said. “We’ll play Candyland and eat lunch!”
Scott and I exchanged glances.
“So, you want to eat while we play a game?” I asked.
Kai nodded vigorously.
“A lot of people do it,” he assured me. “Especially on Saturdays.”
He actually said that, as though he was trying to convince me to do something outside of my comfort zone, like mixing plaid and floral, say. Or Zumba.
We played a rousing game of Candyland while the kids ate their pizza, and when it was done, Kai, having skillfully buttered me up, asked me to take him to the Children’s Museum.
There are certain activities that I generally don’t do alone with the two kids, and the Children’s Museum tops the list. It is impossible to keep them together, and it is impossible to corral Kai into one space for very long. I prefer going to places that are contained in a single room, where I can sit on my butt while the kids play. The Children’s Museum requires razor sharp focus.
We went anyway, waiting purposefully until late in the day so we would get kicked out after an hour and a half when the museum closed. I brought the double stroller with me so I could control the pace and keep the kids together as much as possible. I considered bringing our new walkie-talkies with us, but Kai can’t figure out how to use them. He keeps holding them up to his ears like a phone.
“We have to stay together,” I said to them, “because there’s only one of me and two of you.”
That “togetherness” thing was just a notion, and lasted about 20 seconds. Kai went to climb up some rope contraption that Ryan was too little for, so we rushed to find an elevator to take us up a story to where the rope thing let out, and once we got there Ryan toddled off to a construction exhibit while I positioned myself so I could watch for them both. I DID manage to entice them both into the water room, which has only one point of entry. I stood smack in the doorway so no one could escape without me knowing.
And then Ryan had to go potty.
“I have to go potty, too,” Kai said.
Kai won’t go with me into the girls’ bathroom anymore, having crossed whatever that invisible line is, so I showed him the boys potty, and a strange bench in between the two restrooms. The bench was carved to look like a person. Or a pink gorilla. A man was seated on it already next to a baby in a carrier.
“When you’re done, please wait for us on this bench,” I said. “Got that?”
“Oh, yes,” Kai said, though not in a way that conveyed confidence. But before I could think too much about it, the kids launched themselves into separate bathrooms.
I felt an overwhelming need for speed, and ushered Ryan into one of the stalls. But there was, uh, moisture on the seat that needed to be wiped down. Then Ryan needed help navigating her leggings under her giant tutu, and needed to be lifted onto the seat, and once all of that was done, she decided that she didn’t want to use that stall at all.
“Come on,” I urged, the clock ticking. “This one’s fine.”
“NO! Not this one!”
She hopped down from the toilet and began to look in the different stalls, choosing, eventually, the handicapped stall, which was occupied.
“Honey, there’s someone in there,” I said, beginning to lose patience and wondering how far along in the process Kai was.
“Want this potty!” she said.
“Ryan, that one’s not available. You have to use another one.”
Ryan finally picked another stall. But there was, uh, moisture on the seat that needed to be wiped down. Then we negotiated the tutu and leggings and lifted her up, and when it was done, I asked her to wash her hands.
“No wash hands,” she said.
By this time, I was sure Kai was completely done. I wondered if he was sitting on the bench or not. It would have been frankly out of character for him to be on the bench, but I still had hope.
If there hadn’t been anyone else in the bathroom, I would have skipped the handwashing when Ryan protested. But because there was, and because I’d asked her and she’d refused, we were going to wash hands, dammit.
Ryan squirmed and wiggled as I held her hands under the faucet, slapped some soap on her little mitts and rinsed. When we were done, I handed her a towel.
“Wash-a-hands again,” she said, as though it had been a fun game.
I grabbed her around the waist and ran out of the bathroom.
As I suspected, Kai wasn’t on the bench. The dad was still there, though.
“Did you see my kid come out?” I asked him.
“He’s still in there,” the guy said. He sounded pretty confident.
I poked my head into the boys’ room.
“Kai?” I called.
Nothing.
That’s not all that unusual, really, so I waited a couple more minutes.
“Kai?” I called again.
My voice bounced off of the tiles.
I poked my head farther in.
The bathroom was completely empty.
I hoped that that guy on the bench didn’t have a job that required keen observational skills, like an air traffic controller or spotting ice burgs in the North Atlantic, as I tossed Ryan into the stroller and scanned the crowd for Kai. There were any number of places he could be, and any number of places within those places that he could hide from sight. The panic began to bubble, the one I get when Kai is farther than arms reach. He doesn't come when I call. He likes to hide in enclosed spaces. He likes to follow a train of thought. I'm not sure he knows my actual name—the one beyond "Mommy."
I wondered if I should find an employee.
:::
I have zero shame about reporting Kai lost. It’s happened before. At Target one time, I turned around and he was just gone. I debated trying to hunt him down among the racks of clothes and then just flagged then nearest employee, who promptly unclipped a walkie-talkie from her belt and declared a Code Yellow, sealing off the exits and getting staff in the various departments to search their areas and report back.
They found him within three minutes in the toy aisle, which, you know, duh. I probably could have guessed that had I not been panicky, but that’s what happens when you lose your kid. Don’t think I didn’t immediately start imagining the worst.
At the museum, I knew he hadn’t left. Or been kidnapped. Or gotten trapped down a well. I just didn’t know where he was. I ran into a couple of rooms—the treehouse one, and then Kid City, and was about to ask for help when I saw a grey-blue blur before it disappeared into the tool room.
“Hi, Mommy,” he chirped, quite unaware that he had been missing.
:::
After the museum, we met Scott out for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. By the time we got there, the wait for a table was 40 minutes, so we decided to get food to go. Scott and I sat at the bar, the only available seats in the house, with a kid in each lap (parents of the year!), eating chips and salsa while we waited for our food. I ordered a glass of wine, and the bartender filled all the way to the rim of the glass which was most welcome.
When our food was ready, we began to gather coats and mittens and purses. I stuffed Ryan into her coat and reached for Kai.
“Where’s Kai?” I asked Scott.
Scott looked down, turned all the way around and looked back up.
Kai was gone.
He knew we were leaving, so we bolted through the crowd waiting for tables to the door to see if he was standing by the exit.
No Kai.
We went outside and searched the benches and sidewalk near the valet stand.
No Kai.
“Take Ryan,” I said to Scott, and went back inside.
The place was packed, dark and noisy. I went back to our seats, but didn’t see him. I went to the tortilla machine, a likely place to find him. No Kai.
I went to the hostess stand.
“I lost my kid,” I said.
“Is this him?” she asked, pointing to another little boy standing next to his father.
“That kid isn’t lost,” I pointed out.
The girl said something into a walkie-talkie, and not one, but three managers materialized from the crowd, each with a walkie-talkie of their own. It was Uncle Julio’s version of the Code Yellow. They asked me what Kai was wearing, what he looked like, what his name was, and we all fanned out trying to find him.
This restaurant is huge—cavernous, really, with multiple dining rooms and an outside area, as well as the huge bar.
I heard an announcement go out over the PA, for Kai to go to the hostess stand. I almost laughed. Even if Kai happened to hear his name, and happened to follow those disembodied directions, he had no god damned idea what a hostess stand was.
What I wanted was for everybody in the restaurant to sit down and shut the hell up. I wanted them to bring up the lights and for everybody to look under their table. Kai wasn’t going to be talking to some little kid somewhere, or taking candy from a stranger. He was going to be wedged under a barstool.
Under a barstool.
I went back into the bar area, and began to look under barstools, moving coats, keeping low. He was around here somewhere.
“Excuse me,” came a voice behind me. “Are you looking for a kid?”
I stood up and turned around. A tween girl was pointing to a plaster column.
“Because there’s one right there.”
And so I found him, wedged between a plaster column and a metal pole, two feet off the ground. His blue coat blending with the paint on the column, his dark pants camouflaging him in the dim restaurant lighting.
Ryan and I went back for lunch this week. I have no idea what they thought of me taking pictures of their support structure.
“Are you stuck?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said.
I put my hands under his arm pits and yanked him free.
I stood him on his feet.
“You scared me,” I said. “I couldn’t find you.”
He didn’t answer. Or look at me.
“If you do that again, no iPad, like forever.”
He’s going to do it again, though.
Let’s just go ahead and call a permanent Code Yellow. We already have the walkie-talkies.
Lost and found.
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