Left Behind - A 4 year olds story

Yesterday we went out to eat at the Olive Garden with my in-laws. Though I didn't know it, my youngest, Natalie, had been waiting to tell Grandma and Papa this story.

As she told it, her little chin began to quiver as she thought about what happened. I'm afraid we've traumatized her, maybe for life!

Here's the story.

Saturday afternoon, just hanging around my Sister-in-law's house, we all decided we needed to get out for a bit. So they wanted to show us something, then we were gonna hit a couple of geocaches.

The first one was in a park. Once we arrived, Tracy, Cheryl, Calvin, Carlie & Joelle started heading for the cache. I helped Shelly & Randy put the coordinates in their GPS for the cache location. Once we finished, we started heading that way.

Before we'd taken about 10 steps, Calvin calls, "We found it."

Cool.

Shelly, was kinda dissappointed, in a fun way of course, that the cache was so easy to find. She was kind of hoping for more of a search.

So we let the kids play a while, then headed to another cache.

As we pulled up to the location, I believed I knew where the cache might be and said so. When we parked, Tracy, Cheryl & Joelle hop out of the van to begin the search. Shelly starts to saunter that way, so Doreen hollers to Shelly to get a move on it before Tracy finds it. So it becomes a race. I jump out of the van to take pictures. Low and behold it's not in the big 3 foot stump you could see from the road. So I start to follow my GPS and it's leading me away from it. About that time Tracy & Shelly realize the same thing.

So I stop a the edge of the woods and look back, again seeing a spot where the cache might be located. Doreen and I kind of hang back watching the others search. Finally they find it. Shelly actually got to it first.

So, as is tradition, before opening the cache, we gather around to get a group picture - it's at that moment we notice that Natalie is missing.

Doreen get's that little panic in her voice as she calls for Natalie, then it dawns on us that she's still in the van.

See, she had a car seat that she couldn't undo both buckles. So in our haste to find and document the chase for the cache, we inadvertently left her behind, in the van.

It was only 4 or 5 minutes, but she told Doreen she was shouting for us, and of course we didn't hear. She was crying crocodile tears, but happy that Doreen pulled her out.

It's one of those scary, sad, precious moments. Ya know!

She's doing better now, and right with us! :)