It's pretty scary in this day and age. You never know if it's safe. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in the shopping center with E. We had just parked and were walking from the parking lot towards a store when we saw this little girl, probably around 4, no adults in sight, crying. I went to her and asked if she was alright, and all I could understand was "mommy and daddy", so I asked her her name....she was crying so hard I couldn't understand her. I asked her where she last saw mommy and daddy, she said she was in this store, but they left and now she couldn't see them. Since I was there with E, I sent E into the store to see if there was anyone frantically looking for a child while I stayed outside with her in case they had actually left the store and came back when they noticed she wasn't with them. We had asked her what mommy and daddy were wearing, and she said Daddy had a blue coat and mommy had a black coat. So E went looking for someone with that description. While I was with the little girl, a couple of other people approached, and I was a little upset that they took over and just marched the girl to the store where she had last seen them. I had already sent E, and I was afraid if they weren't there anymore that they would come back and she wouldn't be there. We were always taught that if we got lost, "hug a tree" meaning stay put where you are. It's harder to find someone who is moving from place to place....you miss each other. It wasn't very smart of them to just walk off with her....not to mention I didn't know who they were and what their intentions were. It felt a bit off that they wanted to walk off with her when she was already being helped. I kept up behind them and as we walked into the store, she screamed "DADDY!!" and went running to this guy who was walking towards us with E. She had seen him, but he wasn't looking for anyone at first. Then suddenly he looked around, called to his wife to ask if this girl was with her, she said no, she thought she was with him. E made a beeline for him and asked if he was missing a little girl and that we had found her wandering outside, she'd bring him to her. So all's well that ends well I guess, but I said to E that I was glad WE were the ones who found her, because ANYONE could have just walked up, told her they knew where mommy and daddy were, and snatched her. It's SO scary. I always told my kids to either look for someone who worked there, or to find a mommy with kids, because a mommy would understand and help. Both of them did that at various times. A found someone who worked in a store once when he couldn't see me....I was right there, but he looked the wrong direction and I didn't know he was looking for me. E went to a woman with a few kids and she took E to have me paged when she couldn't remember where our table was at a playground. So it definitely worked to tell them what to do if they got lost....I felt so bad for this little girl who obviously hadn't been taught what to do and she was so scared. And so many people saw her and ignored her. There's no way she could have known who to trust, and I'm glad we found her before the wrong person did!
