Code Yellow

I can just picture myself being in this show called "The Disheveled Housewife". It seems like everywhere I go I am looking for a kid or telling a kid to stop hanging off of a clothes rack or something. I planned on taking the kids to Target to get them out of the house so that these people could walk through. I suddenly could not find my keys and the doorbell was ringing and here I was running around in mass search. My two younger children were already outside waiting for me. I kept yelling through the window to my daughter, "Have you seen my keys?" She kept shaking her head---I thought, "forget it" and kept looking. After searching for a good fifteen minutes (by then the door bell rang) I finally, in desperation asked my daughter again. I grabbed her and put my hands on her shoulders. "Now, if you know where my keys are, please find them for me, ok?"

"Uh, just a minute. I know where they are," she says.

She proceeds to go outside and finally she comes upstairs with my keys in hand. By this time I had already called my husband at work, chewing him out for who knows what. I was so mad. I thought that he had something to do with it since he tends to delete, throw away, and misplace things of mine---I think he thinks I am messy.
Well, she had them outside the whole time, under a tree, for who knows what reason. She has been severely punished.

So I took them to Target. I lost my daughter there, temporarily. I lose a kid about 4 out of the 5 times I take them anywhere. They wander off who knows where and I am a wreck after five minutes of looking, hand on heart, breathing uneven, and looking like a frantic freak. I think of what Dear Sir would say to me when he finds out I lose a human being. The horror of it. I actually got to talking to the Security lady and she was about to call a "code yellow" when I found her looking at the Barbie movies in the movie section. A mother's mind goes in a million directions at this point. I kept telling the kids once I got them in one area that maybe I should put them up for adoption because I can't seem to keep them with me. My oldest wailed, "But Mom, you know Dad would never go for that!" Does it help to tell you that I lost my daughter yesterday too?

So all of you who think I am this great mom who is at the top of her game, yeah right. I am the Code Yellow Lady. I lose kids. Don't let me watch yours.