Egg Hunt and Losing Zach: April 3

Don't you just love the crazy city Easter egg hunts. First of all, these hunts start and end in a matter of seconds. It's the easiest and quickest way for a child to load up on candy. The difficult part is there are several different fields set up for different age groups for the dash-n-grab. What do two adults with four children do? How in the world do you split up?

Well, this was your typical hunt and we had a plan! I would take the girls and he would take the boys! Zach would just have to suck it up and grab a few eggs from the kiddie field. There is no way we were sending him by himself to his age appropriate field. So how did it go you ask? WE LOST ZACH!

This is how the story goes.....as I am walking to take Celeste and Alaina to their field, Zach leaves Jeremy and runs toward me. I figure he came to get Noah's bucket which was still in my hand. Whoops - he doesn't say anything and I just hand him the bucket. He runs back to Jeremy and gives him the bucket. This is where the mishap occurred! Zach told Jeremy he wanted to go with me and the girls so he ran back to me. I, of course, had no idea and NOW I was long gone! Jeremy figured he made it to me and took Noah to his field. Zach was ALONE!

So the hunt starts and I take a few pictures of the girls. Lovely, nice. After the 30 second mad grab, I stand around in the middle of the field while the girls eat some candy. I realize there is no plan for a meeting place and my phone is in the car. DANG! Well, I figure Jeremy knows what field I'm in, so I would wait for him!

20 - 30 minutes later, Jeremy FINALLY finds us huddled next to a wall protecting us from the cold wind. I say immediately, "where's Zach?" He says, "what do you mean, I thought you had him." I say, "what? Are you kidding me?" He says "no, I don't have him." WHAT???????? WHERE IS ZACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we begin searching around the massive amounts of children and adults. Jeremy gets up on a bleacher to see better....with no avail. He then runs to security to see if Zach turned himself in....with no avail. Jeremy then thinks Zach could be in the car! YES the CAR...there was my sad, sad boy!

I felt horrible, but I was so grateful to have found him. Zach told us his side of the story. After leaving Jeremy he went running for me, but I was gone. He couldn't find me so he went to his field. He told a women that he couldn't find his mom, but she told him to do the hunt or he would end up with nothing. She said she was sure his mom was close by. So Zach did the hunt and scored big. Well, as Zach put it, he would rather not have any candy than be lost. Poor kid, I really felt horrible. After the hunt he walked around looking for us and then he thought to go to the car. When he got to the car he prayed we would find him there.

As we headed home, we decided to be done with city egg hunts. Candy is just not worth it!