Oh Shit.

One of the main reasons for getting to Edmonton was to shop prior to winter. We went through the outlet stores on Saturday and on Sunday, headed off to the West Edmonton Mall.

Of the unacquainted, it’s the fifth largest mall in the world (and the largest in North America), has an amusement park, a water park, mini golf, an ice rink …. etc etc. We thought we’d get the shopping out of the way first and then take the kids to the water park as we hadn’t been back there since the very first time.

As we shopped, we started running into fellow Fort Mac based Aussies who like us had taken the opportunity to bugger off for the long weekend. So it was that I found myself chatting in Gap Kids, with the kids looking at clothes (um yeah, sure, so some of them were just terrorizing each other and everyone in the store – its LIKE looking at clothes) and Caroline was trying to sort out payment.

I looked around to do the obligatory head count as it had been a while. Michael? Check. Samuel? Check. Thomas? Hmmm, oh wait, there he is … Check. Emily …probably in a change room with 436 different things to try on. I chatted a bit longer as I continued to scan the shop looking for her. I couldn’t find her and checked with Caroline if she’d seen her. Nope. The people we were chatting to? Not for a while. The heart notched itself up just a fraction (after all, I was used to not seeing a kid for a bit and finding them hiding in the middle of clothing display or sitting down out of the way waiting) and I started to search the store. It’s at the point you start calling out your child’s name that other people start to take a bit more interest.

It’s when you think you’ve looked through the entire store and all the change room that your heart accelerates to the point where its beating is like a drum placed within the ear canal. When you check just outside the store and there’s now collectively 6 adults looking and you still haven’t found her, headlines start to work their way into your conscious despite your best efforts to continue calmly looking.

The staff at Gap closed the doors so that she couldn’t’ get out without us noticing, Caroline had raced off outside to start searching the mall (hey, there’s only about 800 shops and 570,000 square metres to look through). I rounded up the boys and started to describe (and wonder) what she was wearing so that security could be informed. Thomas quietly enquired if Patrick could come back to our campsite.

Before things could get too bad, we had a call back from security to tell us that they had Emily. I think there must have only been 2 minutes pass between the call being made from gap and getting that call back. You know you’re looked after when that happens. The things I think about that could have been alternatives are simply too horrible to even write about.

I called Caroline to let her know and was escorted to security where I was instantly clung to and somewhat relieved.

I didn’t even stop to ask where they’d found her or who had brought her there, I was simply too happy to have her hanging on and not letting go. I was impressed with the way the Gap staff handled the situation as well. I just hope that’s not from lots of practice, because no one really needs to go through that!