Actual nightmare come to life

The hardest thing about motherhood, they say, is that there are no breaks. They are correct. This truism was reconfirmed for me on mother's day a few weeks ago. My dearest wish was to simply sit in bed and watch TV undisturbed and without the threat of having to run off and deal with an unhappy or hungry baby. Thanks to G, this dream of mine was made possible. As I hunkered down with a snack, a soda, and a wealth of pillows, I set out to clear the DVR backlog of Grey's Anatomy episodes.

Of course the first one I watched was the one where April from Gilmore Girls stars as a girl that was kidnapped in the grocery store and was tortured and held captive for 10+ years until she was discovered in the woods and treated at Seattle Grace. Every parents worst nightmare, yes?? Let's just say watching was anything but the relaxing experience I envisioned. I found myself needing visual and tactile confirmation that my beloved child was in fact not in the arms of some horrible woods-dwelling psychopath. My "break" from my baby consisted of me bawling and running to clutch him in my arms. Maybe next year.

Anyhoo, flash forward to this week when we were at the grocery store (i.e. the site of immensely feared kidnapping). B was happily riding along in the cart smiling at cashiers, fellow shoppers, and the Honey Nut Cheerios bee when all of a sudden I spy a kidnapper. How did I know he was a kidnapper? Because they all look the same. He was creepy looking, leathery, had masses of overgrown facial hair, crooked yellow teeth, and scary beady eyes. Judging books by their cover is bad, I'm told, so I tried to convince myself that in fact he was a nice man with an unfortunate hygiene regimen. Just like every passerby, he saunters up to us and says, "Oh what a happy baby!" (My kid is awesome.) My internal monologue consisted of calm me telling panicked me to calm down and everything was fine. Calm me was losing.

Then the perhaps-not-really-a-kidnapper says to B, "Well, don't you just smile at everyone! I bet you would just walk off with anyone. I bet I could even just snatch you right now and you'd go off with me, wouldn't you little guy?" HOLY HELL. OH MY GOD. COMPLETE PANIC. LUMP IN THROAT. PALMS SWEATING. I felt like I must have been imaging this. People don't say those things??

I can't even attempt a funny caption because this picture makes me imagine the worst and burst into tears.

Ration told me that this man wasn't actually going to rip my baby out of my arms and run out of the grocery store past all the other people while I chased him and screamed bloody murder and tried to beat his head with canned goods. But I could not relax. The guy stood there and kept going on and on about how easy B would be to kidnap for probably 3 whole minutes. This seems like nothing but it is pretty long for a random mid-aisle conversation, especially when you are about to hyperventilate.

Finally the guy left and I regained my composure. I managed to keep purchasing groceries while keeping at least one hand on B at all times. Luckily at that moment I grew my required maternal 3rd eye and I kept it locked on the kidnapper until he left the store. If B didn't already sleep next to me in bed he sure as hell would have started after that.

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