Nope.
He's thrown body-gone-limp tantrums before in which I just let go and walk away.
But he's always came running back to me with tears in his eyes.
He's crossed his arms and stopped walking in front of toy/candy stores and I've kept walking proclaiming, "Bye then."
But he's always yelled after me, "No! Don't leave me!"
He's.
Always.
Come.
Back.
The other day at the shopping mall was a different story.
My husband and I walked out of our Target just like any other time we had and our toddler asked, "Can I go play?"
There's a bunch of those moving kiddie rides that cost an arm and a leg to just rock back and forth in front of Target, but inside an actual shopping mall. We agreed, like we normally do but said, "just 5 minutes."
We don't put coins in the rides, but he enjoys them the same. And sometimes, just sometimes, he hops in on other people's rides and we have to act embarrassed and say, "No no no, you can't just get in there!"
But he did that too many times on this particular day and so we cut his time short. Needless to say, the toddler was not happy about that and made it clear. He cried and stomped his feet but I had his arm and we headed towards the exit.
He went limp on me.
I let go of his arm.
He laid there on the ground, crying.
I began to walk away, my husband turned his back with me and we both said, "Okay, Bye!"
We walked about 8-10 feet away, I stopped turned around and my toddler was no longer on the ground.
In fact, I couldn't see him anywhere.
I looked at my husband, "He's gone."
"What?" my husband asked looking around.
We both walked back to the rides and searched in and around them. We walked behind the rides a little to see if ran the opposite direction.
Nope.
We walked back towards the exit to see if he had just ran by and we didn't see him.
Nope.
An older gentleman cleared his throat, "He ran that way." He pointed towards Target's entrance.
I got my husband's attention and we both went into Target again.
No Toddler to be found.
I walked back out while my husband walked further into Target. A younger woman was paying attention to our semi-panic and was moving her head around trying to look for my toddler too.
"He ran into the Target and went that way," she pointed to the right in which would've been in front of the cashiers' lines and the customer service area of Target. So, I went back into Target and walked the whole line from one exit to the other searching for my Toddler.
Surprisingly, my heart wasn't in a panic yet. I was fairly confident I would find him. I know my Toddler. He always comes back.
He ALWAYS comes back.
I reached the other exit and still had no toddler.
This is when my hands started to shake. I walked out the second exit, the one that is also close to the shopping center exit that leads to a huge parking lot to the left ...
Suddenly I heard, "You don't know where your mommy is?"
I looked to my right and there was my Toddler -pouty face, arms crossed, eyebrows furred.
A woman was trying to get information out of my toddler and stranger danger came into effect. I was briskly walking in the opposite direction of the shopping mall exit and I exclaimed, "I'm right here!"
The woman sighed a sigh of relief and walked into Target as my toddler ran to me ... but hesitantly.
He knew he was in the wrong.
I asked, "Why did you run away? You know you're not supposed to leave mommy."
I sat him down on the red bench and reached for my cell to inform my husband that I had found him.
"I'm very upset with you," I said to my toddler.
My toddler cried and wanted to get off the bench. But I informed him that it was a timeout. I explained that the lady was nice enough to try to help him but there are other people who could have taken him away for ever.
Was it the right technique? Meh. I dunno. But I was pretty upset, and so was my husband.
I'm hoping that my toddler learned a lesson. I know I did ... I can't just walk away anymore. He's getting more and more independent by the day and I know what he was thinking.
The Target cashiers are parallel to the shopping center hallway, so he was going to just cut us off at the shopping center exit but go through the Target area. He didn't expect us to stop and turn around. I mean, he's little toddler brain doesn't know that the hallway and the cashier lines are about a tenth of a mile long and there's no way mom and dad would NOT turn around to check on their baby. Luckily though, he says he didn't go outside the automatic doors that led to the parking lot. That was my fear... that he'd gone out there and my little baby would've been totally exposed to anyone.
And thank God for his crankiness when it comes to adults talking to him. Normally I get embarrassed of his crass looks and sharp tongue to strangers ... but that day, I'm thankful (even if the lady was just trying to help him) he took stranger danger seriously.
I do not want to lose my toddler again ... unless he's 18 and ready to move out of my house.
