Calm before the storm

They LOOK innocent enough. We were at Chico's, and were about 5 hours into an outing with my mom. To their credit, up to this moment, their behavior had been acceptable, with very little threatening and yelling on my part. The trouble started when we left the safety of the "man chairs" at the front of the store and ventured to changing area to watch grandma model her clothes.

First, they were content enough to make faces and dance in front of the huge mirror near the changing rooms. Then, that got boring, so they decided to check out the changing room, crawling back and forth under the door of g-ma's room. As they crawled in, crawled out, ran to the mirror, and back again, it was only a matter of time before I lost one...

Suddenly Jack was gone. GONE! It was a small store, and I could see the front door - all glass - and was "pretty" confident that he hadn't gotten out. All the salesladies that had been commenting on how cute they were, now wanted nothing to do with me, and looked at me like, "Look lady, if you can't keep track of your kids, get out of our store." One lady checked the back room, but for the most part they all just sat slackjawed staring at me like they were about to nominate me for the bad mother of the year award. So, I am calling his name, again, again. Trying to keep the cracking out of my voice. I call my mom out and shove Emma at her and say I have lost Jack. I go outside, look around, nothing... I go back inside, looking in clothing, under changing room doors, inside racks, calling the entire time, while these women stare at me. NOTHING! Just as I am about to really lose my cool, and start freaking out, it occurs to me what I should do.

Calmly, collected, I say, "OK, Jack, see you later, we are leaving." Within a half second he says, "Mommy, mommy, here I am, wait for me." and comes scurrying out from under a dressing room door. A dressing room I had looked under mind you, but he was smart enough to go inside and stand ON TOP of the bench, so I could not see his feet... He comes running up to me laughing, saying "I was hiding from you mommy, hahahaha" Um, Jack, no not funny...