Daren lost Will at Disneyland. Let it be said that forevermore he will not be able to tease me about "losing" Walter on our last trip to Disneyland, because not only did he lose Will, but Will was missing for a good 30 minutes before we got him back. All I did was walk off and leave a then 10 year old boy looking at his Space Mountain picture. I walked back and there he was, still looking at his picture. Big whoop.
Here's what happened. It was nearing dark on our second day at Disneyland. I took the kids and went to the Indiana Jones ride. Daren decided to take Helen and Will to the Tarzan Treehouse--just a walkthrough thing with some hands on activities at the end. They stopped to play and Daren noticed Helen was talking to a lady so he went to investigate. Looked back a few seconds later and no Will. He looked everywhere, sent Helen through the treehouse again, looked outside. No Will. He talked to several park employees before finding someone to help him (strange that no one knew what to do since I am sure this kind of thing happens many times a day).
In the meantime, we got done with Indiana Jones and saw the stroller still parked in the same spot so we decided to look around in the Indiana Jones store and then sit outside until Daren got back. It was dark by this time, and the park was near closing time. Pretty soon, Allison says "Oh, I see Dad, he's talking to a policeman (security guy). He has Helen, but not Will."
Oh. My.
I went over as Daren is giving a description of Will to the security guard. The guy really didn't seem to know what to do. It was so strange. I went looking around for a while then came back. The guard asked if Will would "freak out" or be calm. I said he would probably just search for his Dad, maybe cry a little. He would definitely leave the area looking. Daren sent the kids through the treehouse again. I paced. A few minutes later the guard came back and said that Will was at Lost Children. Phew.
Daren had to wait for kids to come back so I went with the guard up to the area where Will was. There he was, playing with the other little boy that was lost. The lady he was with said "There's your mommy in the pink tank top!" He gave me a big grin and said, "Mommy! I was looking for Daddy! He was not there!"
I had a long walk back to Daren since I didn't have my phone on me. On the way, I asked Will a few questions to see what he was able to tell people. As it turns out, he knows his parents names: "Mommy is Cristy and Daddy is Daren". He knows he is Will Keeney. He was able to understand that if he loses Daddy or Mommy again he is to SIT DOWN. Why I didn't go over that with him before, I don't know, except I really didn't think he would understand. We told all the other kids if they lose us, stay where they are, we will be back to get them. Don't leave the area. But I guess we missed Will.
He told me that he told the two ladies that helped him, "I am lost. I need to find my parents." Of course, he also told Helen Mae that they were both dressed like Minnie Mouse. I don't care what they were dressed like, I am just glad they saw a little boy wandering around and helped him out.
The next day, we were able to pay it forward. We were walking along, and there went a little boy looking worried. I watched for a minute in case he was headed for someone, but he wasn't so Daren hurried ahead and stopped him. We sat down with him and got a little info so Daren could go look around for his mom. He was about Will's age so I had Will show him his new airplane and the little boy showed him his hot wheels. Pretty soon they were playing. Daren didn't have any luck finding parents, so a maintenance worker took him to the Buzz Lightyear guys who called it in. A lady sitting there mentioned that she had been watching him but we got there first. She then marveled at how many kids we have and how on earth do we keep track of all of them!
Oh, lady, if only you knew.
