Ugh, not one of my finer mommy moments.
R & G's 8th birthday is this weekend, and I took all the kids to the mall yesterday so they could buy presents for their siblings. Our Target is connected to the mall, so after walking them through the store and showing them where I would be waiting with Roger, I let the three girls (S & Z are 9-1/2) shop alone. Oh, forgot to say, I prefaced this whole thing by telling them that this is a big deal, trusting them to shop on their own, and they had to take it seriously and stay together. Sophie comes back out to us a while later. Alone. She says Z & G "wandered off looking at things." I tell Sophie and Roger to stay put while I go back in the store and find Z at the check out. No Georgia. I look all around and start to panic. I can't find her anywhere, so I tell an employee. Code Yellow, which, I guess means the whole store is looking for her. Then I tell one of the employees that she might be out where she was supposed to meet us, so I head over there, and sure enough, as I'm heading out there, she comes to me. Cancel Code Yellow.
I really thought they would have stayed together like I told them to. Eight and 10-1/2 seems old enough to do this kind of thing, doesn't it? I mean as a group, not individually. It is so frustrating to try to give them a little independence and realize you can't trust them after all. What a day. I did end up taking them to another store, a smaller shop (Justice) so R, S, and Z could buy presents for Georgia. I was able to wait with Georgia right outside of the store and because it was small and there was only one entrance/exit, it was definitely safer than Target. They were so excited to be able to buy presents and I didn't have my husband with me so we couldn't have done it unless we split up.
sigh I guess we shouldn't have done it.
