Turning Gray on Black Friday

On the morning of Black Friday, we decided to visit Shopko to pick up a couple of items on sale. We took the entire family with us, which turned out to be a mistake. Inside the store, Max found a tyrannosaurus rex figurine that he just had to have. It was made of hard plastic, but the mouth was hinged so that it could open and close. It was $25. There was no way we were going to spend that much money on a plastic dinosaur. We told Max to put it back on the shelf.

Instead, he ran.

My man left to search for him while I took the other boys to the register to check out. I had to wait in line for quite a while as the cashier slowly scanned a pile of clothing and removed the hangars before putting them in bags for the customer in front of me. While I waited, I continually looked around, hoping to spot Max so that I could grab him. I became more and more stressed when I didn't see him. I began to wonder if someone had taken him or if he was getting into trouble without my supervision.

Finally, while the cashier was scanning my items, I saw my man leading Max by the hand towards the customer service counter. We exchanged a look.

"He stole it," my man mouthed to me. Yep, Max had run completely out of the store with the dinosaur toy.

I watched as my man made Max return the dinosaur to the customer service representative and apologize. Then he took him and the other two boys out to the car. When I caught up, Max was looking teary-eyed in his carseat.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Max," I said. "Stealing is very wrong. You are grounded for the rest of the day. That means no video games, no movies, no iPad." Max wailed appropriately.

We thought that would be the end of our Max fiascoes for the day.

Later, we took Max and JayJay to the doctor for an illness they both had that was lingering too long. After examining them both, the doctor sent us over to the hospital to have a test done on Max. I told my man to wait in the car with JayJay and Third while I accompanied Max. Bad idea. We always need both parents when it comes to supervising that crazy kid.

I walked into the hospital and sat down at the admitting counter to get Max registered. He sat with me for a time, interested by the masks that sick people have to wear. The lady helping us asked him how old he was and was surprised that he is only four. She thought he was six. Gradually, Max lost interest and began to wander away, exploring the waiting area and the long, wide corridor where admitting was located. He slowly got farther and farther away.

I kept thinking that I should get up and bring him back to me, but I figured he was fine as long as I could see him. The registration process was taking quite a while between paperwork and confirming our information. During that process, Max kept going until he eventually disappeared around a bend in the corridor.

By this time, the receptionist had left her desk to get some papers from a back office. I sat frozen, unsure what to do. If I left to get Max, what would happen if she returned to find me gone? Surely, Max wouldn't wander much farther. Ugh. I'm such a dumb parent. After being his mom for four years, I should know better.

Feeling flustered, I called my man. "Can you come in here? I'm stuck doing paperwork and Max has disappeared. I need you to get him."

My man agreed, but I still felt stressed and torn about my decision to wait at the admitting desk. Then the respiratory therapist who was to conduct the test on Max came to fetch him. Embarrassed that he wasn't with me, I explained, "He went that way. Could you go find him?"

"Sure," she said and headed in the direction I pointed.

"He's wearing a black shirt and khaki pants."

"Are you looking for that little boy?" someone asked who was approaching down the hall and had overheard our conversation.

"Yes," said the therapist.

"He's down there, all alone."

Another approaching person said, "Yes, I saw him going up the stairs."

The therapist followed their directions.

The registration process took another five minutes, during which I did not see my man or my missing son. Finally released, I jumped up and charged down the hall to look for Max. The corridor turned out to be much longer than I thought it would be. He was nowhere in sight. I hurried through an atrium with benches and statues and to the very far end where some glass doors led into the parking garage. There I finally saw my man coming in with Third and JayJay in tow. But no Max and no therapist. Surely he wouldn't have gone outside, and if he had, he should have run into my man. I turned and hurried back the way I had come, looking for Max, hoping the therapist had found him and would be waiting for me near the admitting desk. No one was there. Perhaps she had found him and taken him somewhere to do the test, assuming we knew where to go and would follow. I spun again and went to my man.

"I can't find him anywhere!" I wailed.

A nurse approached and said to my man, "Are you the guy missing a little boy?"

"Yes," said my man.

"He's wearing a black shirt?"

"Yes," he said.

"Ok," she said, but she didn't know where he was.

Then I saw a door with a sign next to it indicating it gave access to a stairway. Perhaps they were the stairs that person had seen him climbing. I charged through and ran up four flights of stairs, shouting for Max and trying every door on every level, which were all locked. Max was not in the stairwell. I ran back down the stairs and out into the corridor. My man was gone now. I headed down to search the other end of the hospital even though I had seen Max go in the opposite direction. I met my man coming back. No Max.

I was beginning to be really scared. The hospital was a huge building to search and someone could have easily taken off with him.

As we were heading back towards admitting, we finally saw the respiratory therapist approaching down the hall.

"Did you find him?" I asked, but she was alone.

However, she said, "Yes," and paused and turned slightly and then Max appeared, trailing along behind her down the hallway.

Relief flooded through me. "Where did you find him?"

"On the roof, watching the helicopter take off."

WHAT????

My baby was on the ROOF of the hospital?! How the heck did he get up there?!

"How did you know where to look?" I asked, completely flabbergasted.

"I just figured he went up the stairs," she said.

Sheesh! Was there even a wall of any sort around the edge of the hospital roof? "MAX!" I shrieked. "I'm going to beat you black and blue!!!" Then he reached me and I hugged him tightly. "You scared Mommy!"

We went and got the test done and on our way out, I asked Max to show me exactly where he had gone.

He pointed at the floor of the hospital, which was paved with shiny white tiles. However, a ribbon of dark gray tiles curved back and forth across the hall.

"I saw this trail," Max explained, "and I wanted to follow it." He began again to follow the path of dark tiles. He led us to the atrium with the benches and statues. "Then I saw these statues and I was like 'Woah!' and I tried to be a statue like them." He stiffened as if trying to become a statue again. "Then I kept going." He continued past the statues and we reached the doors where my man had come in. To the left of them was a staircase I had not noticed in my frantic search. Max continued, "Then I saw these stairs and went up them to the roof. The helicopter was taking off. It was awesome!"

So I got a few more gray hairs on Black Friday, courtesy of Max and his shenanigans. Luckily, the therapist found him when she did. Otherwise, he might have ended up on the helicopter.