Jag Förlorad min Spädbarn i IKEA!

First a disclaimer: I do not write this to let everyone see what a bad mother I am. I thought I should share that I had quite possibly the scariest moment for a mother today.

Jeff had taken the older kids on a 23 mile bike ride which was going to take most of the day today, so Ben and I were without the rest of our family and made our way together down to IKEA. For anyone that doesn't have an IKEA near them, it is a little hard to describe.

Ikea is a HUGE furniture and housewares store which isn't unlike a human rat maze. You can really only go one way to get anywhere. If you turn around and try and go back to something you just looked at, you are a salmon swimming up stream, and on Saturdays it is incredibly crowded. This map sums it up pretty good and isn't as much of a joke as you might think.

There is a little area in the kids' department of furniture that the kids can play on. I let Ben out of the cart for a few minutes to give him a break and to let him play. I turned my back for just a moment to look at some bins for the new train set I was buying for him.

I had my back turned for literally 15 seconds and turned around and he was no where to be found. At first, you just kind of figure he is still nearby - but as the seconds tick by, a panic sets in that can not even remotely begin to be described.

After 3 or 4 minutes of not being able to spot him, which in my panic seemed like hours, I went to an employee to let them know there was a lost two-year-old somewhere in the store.

She started explaining to me their lost child policy, explaining that they would lock down all exit doors and no one could leave the store until he was found. Somehow her explaining that to me was all it took for me to lose it. Between regular freaking out and being 8 months pregnant, that was the end of me.

She explained that all lost children are immediately taken to the playland that is in the middle of the store - which is like 5 departments away from where I was at. As she took me there she was nicely explaining that it happens all the time, and even more so on Saturdays when it is so busy, but as for me that was little consolation.

Once there, they see me and before even 2 words were out assured me that they had him there and he was off playing with a train set. As they brought him back out to me, I have never had such a feeling of relief in my life just to have him back in my arms again.

Remarkably, being in the play area there, he didn't even want to come to me who had been freaking out trying to find him.

The employees there actually told me that a lady that was wearing a blue shirt, like I was, thought he was following her, and when she turned around and he saw her face, he got a pretty sad look on his face, so he must have thought it was me. But as soon as he was taken to toys, then he was fine.

The rest of the day as we walked the rest of the maze, he kind of got a kick out of telling me "I scare you mommy " and laughing but by then, I was just so grateful he was back with me that it didn't really matter.