Mark took a vacation day today and we went to the mall with Natalie and Victoria for a few hours. Natalie had taken some 4-year-old photos with our family photographer earlier that morning before we headed to the mall for lunch. When we arrived at the mall, I engaged in the normal ritual of putting Victoria in her stroller and strapping her in. While looking at some shoes in Dillard’s, Victoria wriggled free of her seat belt straps and I saw her standing in the seat of her stroller. I was surprised she had gotten free, but buckled her back in and we continued our leisure stroll through the mall. Our next stop was to a little store called Petrie’s. They have lots of cute little things that can be personalized, amongst jewelry, etc. There are tons of things that girls love if they are into being “girlie!” Anyway, we were looking at some cute backpacks and lunch boxes to get the girls for next year. I had Victoria in her stroller and had just looked at her and talked to her. A few moments later I looked at Victoria’s stroller and there was NO Victoria in the stroller! I felt myself immediately go into a panic! I called out for Mark who was a few feet away looking at something with Natalie. I yelled, “Mark, where’s Victoria?? She’s gone! She’s not in her stroller!!” We began looking around the store where we were standing for her. Then, without even thinking I ran out of the store still holding the unpurchased book bags in my hand calling out for Victoria. I saw Mark stick his head out of the store entrance and I turned around long enough to throw him the book bags so the owner of the store wouldn’t think I was stealing them (this is comedy relief in this story, I guess!). I then started running around looking for Victoria. An older lady close to the entrance of Petrie’s said that she had just seen a little girl walk right past her by her all by herself. I asked where she was and she said, “Well, she’s way down there by now (she was pointing back toward Dillard’s).” I went into even more of a panic. A few moments later, after continuing to call out for Victoria, I finally heard her jabbering and saw a shadow of her walking around a table area close to me. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was thanking the Lord that she had not gotten so far away from me that I couldn’t find her.

Oh Victoria, why did you have to go and scare me like that??