"Making the decision to have a child- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." Elizabeth Stone

We attended the City of Blackfoot Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Last year we were late and missed it so we were rushing to get to the area on time. Hayden and Hadley were in the same age group looking for eggs. They are just sectioned off squares with the eggs scattered on the ground. Parents are not allowed to help their children so I sent them to the front of the group and waited for the horn to blow. At 11 the horn blows and the mayhem begins. Kids running in every direction, the lady on the P.A. telling the parents to get out of the hunt area and parents ignoring the P.A. lady and helping their kids anyway. I'm in back of a wall of parents. Here are some pic's of me holding my camera up above the crowd and taking random shots after the horn was blown.

The eggs are gathered and here comes Hadley pulling her friend Abby out of the crowd, right back to me. Where is Hayden? He must be looking for me so I wait, and wait, and wait. Now I'm getting nervous. I have not moved from the place they left me and afraid to move. I'm scanning the crowd and absolutely freaking out on the inside. I cannot show this concern to my two girls because this will not help the situation in any way. The lady on the P.A. is telling everyone to get the items out of their eggs and return the plastic egg shells for next year. I decide to expand my line of sight and move so that I can see both where I was standing and the line to the egg return. Still no Hayden. Internal freak out increasing by the minute. I finally go to the Chamber of Commerce stand and talk to our friends, Curt & Maureen Green who are there. I ask them to help me look for Hayden. They put out the word and start searching for my son. I also talked to one of the officers there, who both Shawn & I work with, and tell him that I can't find Hayden. I'm dragging the girls all over this park looking for Hayden and trying not to let my internal freak out become external. I finally decided to go check my car because Hayden would go back there if he couldn't find me. I leave my cell number with Curt and tell the officer that I am going there & if when they found Hayden to take him to the Chamber of Commerce stand and call me. I take off to the car. Now, I didn't park the car in the Grove, I parked several blocks away, across one busy street and behind a restaraunt. That is why the car wasn't the first place that I checked. Hadley finally got on the stroller because she couldn't keep up with me. I was almost to the busy street when I see Maureen and a posse (including her children and Jon Croxford) walking with Hayden. I almost broke down right there.

When Hayden couln't initially find me, he decided to go and play in the toys on the other side of the park. After a while he got worried that I hadn't found him so decided to go to the car. Maureen saw him crossing the busy street and found him sitting on the grass near the car. Officer Rowland gave Hayden a little lecture (thank you) and we headed back to the car so that I could cry. Hadley was upset because she didn't get a picture with the Easter Bunny or get a balloon because we had been too busy looking for Hayden. We went back to the park and let them get a picture and let Hayden return his egg shells. Unfortunatley, they were out of balloons. Here is a picture of the kids with the Easter bunny. Hallie would not let me get within a 2 foot radius of the him so she is not in the picture.

Well, part of my heart was gone for a bit and I hope that I never have to feel that abscence again. I think that this was the worst feeling that I have ever felt. I am so thankful to the many people who helped look for him. I was amazed at how many people dropped what they were doing and started to look. I keep thinking of the parents who's children are lost or have been taken and I ache for them. I have been looking at ways to get involved in the center for missing and exploited children. There are tons of little things that can be done is registering you phone to received real amber alerts, not just the fake ones that get sent through your area. The site to do this is:

http://www.wirelessamberalerts.org/

I have also posted a link for Idaho missing children. If you google the National Center for Missing and Exploited Chilren there are several links that you can post for yourself as well.