Lost in zoo

One Of the benefits of my current employer is the provisioning of zoo passes and river safari passes. The kids had a jolly good time despite the fact that they were lost. ..once each. 

It started with Nathan who was running up and down the panda exhibit, trying to locate the sleeping jia jia. He ran up and down a couple of times thinking that he knows the enclosure and confident that he could find us. 

However this was not the case as he soon lost his orientation and forgotten which was the entrance and exit and headed back out the entrance of the exhibit.Fortunately the zoo attendants managed to stop him from running out. During that period I was flustered! What will happen to my 👶 baby! Did he fall into the enclosure ín order to get a better look of the pandas?  I cannot help but blamed my self for over trusting him. .a 4 year old.. and my inability of keeping him within sight. Chris who was way ahead of us didn't help either. 

We were really lucky that the one of the attendants recognised us and told me not to panic and that my son is in their office. 

Nathan looked a little shaken when I saw him. He finally understood why I always nagged at him to hold on to us and stay with us. He didn't let go off my hand for the rest of the visit. I cannot fathom life without one of the kids! We were lucky this time... 

Natalie who was watching by the side also chided him. She was so confident that she herself will follow instructions and not go missing. We decided to test her limits... as we entered the viewing hall for the porpoise, we decided to hide in a corner as she went running around the area without care. Soon she was lost. We wanted to see her reaction and didn't anticipate that she will move out of the entire area in search for us. As she is older, her pace was twice faster than Nathan's and we soon lost track of her. Daddy and I panicked! Lost another kiddo in 1 day. He ran out in search for her and asked around. He found her 200/300m away, close to the entrance of boardwalk. So never underestimate the speed of your child. I was really glad the environment was almost vacant, else it'll be really hard to spot a missing child. 

Thereafter...

Both kids held on to us tightly.

What was lost was found.....

Chris and I who were complacent about never losing our children finally understood the feeling of loss and will never want to go through this episode again.