five minutes in a bad bad bad place

we are back in arizona and we brought some rain! yeah!

we had a really really great family vacation in toronto. we hung out with my brothers, and my sister, and my parents, and our friends too. it was a delight. until the last day.

friday was Canada Day. happy birthday Canada! it's the first time i have been in canada on it's birthday for years and years. so to celebrate our country's birthday, as well as our last day with our family, we headed to Ontario Place, a little amusement park type place. we saw Thomas the train on stage, rode a little roller coaster, played in a freezing cold splash pad, and lost our poor daughter.

yes. i lost my lily. and it was my fault. we went into this crazy area where there were two levels with gun-type things that shot out nerf balls, and other contraptions that when you out the balls back in the contraption they popped out and spewed out from the ceiling. it was craziness. there were kids and adults all over the place. chris had topher, jeehon was on sungu, i was on lily, and my brother edward was rovering about. it was a pretty flawless situation. or was it?...

lily loved the craziness. she would climb up the stairs, throw some balls, go down the slide, go back upstairs, go back downstairs, etc etc. i followed her as best as i could, but she could care less that i was stalking her. so i stayed 'upstairs' and caught a severe case of attention deficit disorder. i started picking up balls and throwing them at my unsuspecting sister below. then i saw topher walking around aimlessly so i brought him upstairs, and even got him hooked up with one of the ball guns. then we went to hit chris with a bunch of balls, only to have him hit me with a bomb of a question: "where's lily?" hmm. stumped, i said i didn't know and that i hadn't seen her in a while. panic. we split to find our girl and informed jeehon and edward that they needed to start looking too, whilst keeping topher and sungu safe at the same time.

i stayed inside and went back upstairs to get a bird's eye view of the place. kids running everywhere. i could not spot my little girl. i even jammed my chubby pregnant body down the slides just to make sure she wasn't hiding in there. i hoped against hope that she was hiding in a corner somewhere, but there weren't that many corners to hide in. things were going through my mind that made me want to rip my brain out and shoot it out of one of the ball guns. what if someone took lily? there was not a whole lot of security in the place, very easy to walk in and out. what if i never saw my lily again? what if the baby in my belly never knew it's older sister? what if what if what if???? i didn't go outside cause i knew my lily would not leave on her own, and i was even holding her adorable little yellow polkadot flip flops. i clung on to those flip flops with a giant prayer in my heart that i would be able to put them back on her precious little feet.

chris is fortunately a much less emotional dramatic mess than me. maybe because he's a cop and he does serious stuff like this all the time. he went outside right away and didn't see lily. he came back inside and looked around. no lily. he went outside one more time when a man approached chris and asked if he was looking for his daughter. chris said yes and was directed to the store next door and found our hysterical little lily crying her eyes out!

apparently she had come outside and was calling out for chris and i. and then she was brought to the worker in the store. i don't know why she wasn't directed back to the crazy ball room. and i don't know why i wasn't deadset focused on my daughter. so many unanswered questions. fortunately we found her and she was safe in our arms and i was able to place her flip flops back on her feet.

we've had many discussions about how we never leave somewhere without mom or dad, and how we never leave somewhere with a stranger- whether child or adult, and even more discussions about how much we love our lily and are so thankful for her. we had even discussed in the car on the way over to the amusement park that we had to be so careful to stay close and that if the kids could not see us, then we could not see them. ah! if only i had taken my own advice.

the next day we were on the plane and i spit out so many prayers of thanks to my good Lord for letting me have my daughter sitting next to me. there are so many things about her that make me want to die because of her cuteness. her heart is so special and sweet and loving and sassy. and she's hilarious. as we were getting ready to take off, lily asked in a very loud voice if we were getting ready to blast off, causing all the people sitting around us to laugh. and she is such an artist! this is one of my favoritest things about her right now, and she drew this incredible (though slightly rated R) picture of me in the shower:


(yup, water showering me and my boobies, belly, and belt. i don't ever wear a belt in the shower, but lily thought she should add one. artistic touch.)

what would i do without this picture? and what would i do without my incredible lily??? i have to finish this post cause i am going to start crying. i am thankful that my lack of attention was nothing more than five minutes of terror followed by hours/days of giant hugs and kisses and prayers of thanks.