Losing Tryn

Sometimes being a parent is harder than hard work. Like, for instance, the first time that you lose your child in a store. Yes, Tryn and I unintentionally parted ways last night and it was definitely a different kind of hard.

I usually have to be out of the house on Thursday nights. Steve has youth group at our house and so I take the girls and try to think of things to do. Sometimes we hang out with the neighbors upstairs, which is nice if it is especially cold or something. Sometimes I have errands to run and so we make trips to Super Target or Cub. A couple of days ago I heard that the Macy’s at Brookdale Mall was closing down, and so I thought I would take the girls to check it out. It was chaotic. There are just racks of unorganized clothes everywhere and tons of people milling around. Just crazy.

There we were, walking down one of the big center aisle and Tryn takes off ahead of me. She does this a lot, but usually doesn’t get too far ahead. Well, this time when I called out the warning, “Tryn, stop and wait for mommy!” She stopped, turned around and looked at me, and then kept going! Little stinker! At first I wanted to see how far she would go before she realized that she was too far away. She didn’t get to that point. Pretty soon I was running down the aisle trying to dodge people and center racks with the stroller. It got to the point where there was a center rack blocking my vision of Tryn and when I got around the rack I couldn’t see her anymore. Serious crap. I was the mother frantically calling out the name of my kid and racing around the jewelry counter. It felt like 10, though I am sure it was only 2 or 3 minutes before I heard her laughing behind a rack of clothes. I am not one to totally freak out, but that was a really long couple of minutes. Tryn and I had a pretty serious talk listening to mommy and not running away.

To top it all off, the really gorgeous Lucky Brand hoodie that I found (green with beautiful detailed paisley/flower pattern along the shoulders and sleeves, and in my size even! bummer that I can’t find a picture to show you), literally ‘the hoodie that I have always wanted’ that I found on clearance for $29.99 – with an additional 30% off, rang up at $72.50. I guess they have been having problems with tag switching and so the manager wouldn’t give me the price that was on there. Total crap night.