What to do when you lose your kid at the zoo.

Have you ever played the game “Would you rather?”

We play it all the time at my house. My husband always picks the most awful things and the rules are you have to pick one. “Would you rather sleep in a bed full of spiders or snakes?” My kids pick more realistic, but still hard things, “would you rather eat candy for breakfast or stay up super late?”

I like to play it when I need to decide between two equally bad things, “would you rather attend Toastmasters or go to the zoo with a million elementary age school kids?”

I hate the zoo and I would have rather been giving a speech at Toastmasters, but I chose the zoo, based 100 percent on guilt.

The zoo trip.

Three years ago I went to my daughter’s kindergarten field trip to the zoo. I’m one of those “fair” moms, so now I had to go to the zoo with my son’s kindergarten class. Torture.

Both days, while three years apart, were very similar in weather. It had rained the night before, and it was drizzling up until we walked through the gate. Chaperoning a girl and then a boy, both to the zoo on very similar days, just showed me how different boys and girls are.

With girls, the puddles were walked around, hands were held, and voices were bossy.

With boys, the puddles were jumped in, hands were held but only to pull the other boys along quicker, and the voices were loud and crazy.

One big difference from both zoo days was the amount of people at the zoo during my son’s field trip. It must have been “bring your class to the zoo and everyone else you know” day. I’d never seen so many buses lined up at the zoo, ever. Groups and groups and groups of kids. Kids everywhere. And with the kids came parents.

Luckily the teacher did a great job dividing up the kids and their buddies. It was a ratio of 1 adult to 1-2 kids. Some groups had 2 parents and 2 kids. Some had 2 parents and 3 kids. My group consisted of 2 adults to 3 boys. Me and a grandma, although I would have mistaken her for a mom, if I hadn’t been introduced to her as Jose’s grandma. She was tall, talkative and so, so sweet.

Before we left the teacher, I looked at the boys and said, “I’m wearing the same sweatshirt as my son and it has your school tiger on it. So look for this sweatshirt, if you walk too far.” I like to prepare for the worse, even when it never happens.

Tired and hungry.

Jose’s grandma and I spent most of our time yelling, “slow down and don’t step in the puddles!” And the rest of the time spewing out weird phrases, “Please stop climbing on the statues.” “Yes, I’ll take a picture of you sitting in the monkey’s arms, if you promise to get down.” and “No you can’t hide in the tall grass, there might be snakes.”

The zoo has so many fun things for little boys to climb on, crawl through or balance on.

We were exhausted and excited when lunchtime rolled around, so we found a bench and listened to the boys giggling about how their sandwiches looked like butts. After lunch those boys were ready to capture some tigers, with their newfound energy.

“Can we please see the tigers? Pleeeeeeeease.”

We checked our watches to see we had two more hours before we had to be back. Off we went to find the tigers. But we quickly remembered why we hadn’t found the tigers before lunch: the play area. Sigh. All of the kids we saw at the entrance seemed to now be jammed into the teeny tiny play area. This was going to be a disaster.

The stinky monkeys.

Luckily, the boys had enough after five minutes and no monkey-bar arm room, “we wanna go see the stinky moneys, pleeeeease! They’re just right there.”

I could see the monkeys from the table but I stood up as the three boys walked toward the cage of stinky monkeys. At that same moment, another mom grabbed our attention, “Is that little boy yours!?!”

I turned around and saw a little boy down by the water, looking through a telescope. “Nope. Not mine.” and then she continued, “he was standing on that railing, I was afraid he was going to fall in!” She looked, accusingly, at two other moms and exclaimed, “And this is exactly why I don’t let my kids go to the zoo with anyone except me! Ain’t no one gonna watch your kids like you watch your kids!”

Sheesh, lady, stop that judging right now. Other parents are fully capable of watching kids that aren’t their own. And that’s when I turned around to look after my kid and two others kids who weren’t mine. Fullllll-eeeeeee capa, shit!

“Oh my god, the boys. they’re gone!”

Jose’s grandma looked at me and said, “Did you see which way they went?”

Panic and run.

I could see two paths next to the stinky monkeys but I didn’t know what to do. So I stood there paralyzed, until she said, “I’ll go this way, you go that way?” Yes, smart. Two ways. Two adults.

I start down my path. Every turn I come upon I can hear a little voice talking. That’s gotta be him. I can hear him giggling. But then I turn the corner and it’s just another group of kids. Not my son or his two buddies.

More adults, more kids. Every turn.

I walk over a bridge and I see the water. And the tall grass. So many fun things for a boy to climb on, jump over, balance on. I keep walking. Faster and faster. More things to fall in. I’m moving faster. Panic. Complete panic.

More parents. More kids.

I can hear the parents saying, “watch out guys, it looks like that lady needs through.” And I hear little voices, but everything is blurry. And I reach the end. A dead end. With no three boys.

I call Jose’s grandma, while I turn around to head back to the stinky monkeys, “Did you find them?!” Her, “No. did you?” Me, “No, I’m going back to the playground!” I hang up and start to run.

And I hear more parents, “watch out kids. Move over.”

It’s all blurry and I’m panicking. It’s hard to focus. I feel like I can’t breath. My heart is beating so fast. I make it back and I can hear someone say, “did you lose someone? you look panicked.”

I’m looking straight in her eyes and a sea of judging parents around her, but I can’t see her face or anyone’s face. I can’t focus. It’s blurry. I say, “Yes! THREE BOYS! THREE LITTLE BOYS!”

And then I look down.

Relief and tears.

And I see him, back behind her, with his big eyes. And then I see Austin and Jose. I grab him and I kneel down I hug him. And I put my hands out to the other boys. I hear the mom talking, she’s saying something but I can’t hear her. I can only see the boys. As I’m hugging and looking at all three boys, he looks at me and says, “we went around the building and back to the table and you weren’t there. Where did you go?” — I look up and see the building and that’s when I realize there weren’t only two ways they could have gone, there were three.

He says it again, “why weren’t you there?”

I look at him and as I say, “we were there, we went looking for you,” Jose looks at me and says “are you crying?”

“I’m just so glad you boys stayed together.”

I called Jose’s grandma and told her they were back in the park area and I had them all. She walked up and looked so calm. She explained to the boys the importance of not walking off, as I wiped my tears and said, “I think it’s time for this zoo trip to be over.”

You gotta stay calm.

We headed to the bathroom and I told her how I panicked. And that’s when she told me something I’ll never forget, “Honey you just gotta stay calm until the situation is over. I walked my whole path faster than I’ve ever walked, but I kept myself calm. You gotta just stay calm. When you panic, everyone panics.”

But, how? How do you stay calm?

Do you stay calm by never allowing yourself to get into a situation like that? Or do you stay calm because you’ve already been in a similar situation? While I’m not sure which is the right answer, I do know this, losing my child was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

So, when my husband got home from work, I said, “Would you rather lose your kid at the zoo, or lose someone else’s kid at the zoo?” before he could answer I said, “Well, I did both and I’m never going back to the zoo again.” He laughs and says, “in four years you will, when the baby is in Kindergarten. It’s only fair.”

And when I do, I’ll remember to just stay calm, just like Jose’s grandma taught me.