I had a, “I totally stink as a parent,” moment as Sea World over the weekend.  I managed to lose Annie.  I thought Will had her, he thought I had her and it was a fairly crowded day.  I took off screaming for her and was close to tears as people stopped me to ask for descriptions to help me find my little girl.  I knew I had about 30 seconds to find her before the search radius increased enough for it to be physically impossible for me to find her.  Of course I lost her by the sharks so she could have wandered into the entrance or exit of the shark exhibit, manitee exit, or off the other 3 sidewalks headed to different ends of the park.  After about a minute of searching, a man yelled for me and I turned to find a large group of people gathered around a woman holding Annie.  My little, sweet Annie red-eyed and sobbing was safe in the arms of a stranger.  I can’t even begin to describe the relief and deep love I felt for her as I held her in my arms again.  Of course waves of inadequacy and guilt left me swimming for quite a bit of the day.  Annie just kept sobbing, “That lady holding me…that lady isn’t my mommy.”  I am glad that she remembered what we had talked about.  That is exactly what I told her to say if someone picked her up and tried to take her.  I’m so grateful for the lady who was kind enough to step in and comfort my daughter when I wasn’t able to.

On a lighter note, we has some friends come visit for the weekend and we had so much fun!  The days were filled mostly with the beach, Sea World and more of the beach.  The evenings had to include Pink Berry, Blokus and Bohnanza (Who wouldn’t love to get money planting stink bean farms?…you’re curious about the game, huh?)  Their cute little kids added some extra fun and Hudson and Annie now keep asking us where we can get a baby like baby Luke.  Hudson wanted to go pick one up after they left this morning.  I told him it doesn’t really work that way, but I did NOT elaborate!  They even still let me hold their baby after the whole Annie incident.