Another amazing story of survival.

I think we all have days in parenthood where our biggest accomplishment is that all the kids managed to survive. I am constantly amazed at my army of oblivious little minions. They walk next to be completely unaware of the danger lurking in every corner. They cross the street staring at the ground. Can u imagine crossing the street with your head down the entire time? They walk right into large bodies of water completely unaware of how to swim. Kids touch everything, live wires, used needles, bodily fluids, outlets, strange dogs, actually any strange animal. They trust strangers. They walk off anywhere...with anyone. Think about it, it is an accomplishment that at the end of everyday, we kept them alive and safe.
Well, today we had a very close call. Not the first and for sure not the last. Our family headed to a big parade in the downtown area. It is extremely crowded. Trying to finagle the wagon off the curb at every stoplight is a feat in itself. Our family has a rule that we all hold hands when we cross the street. We are pretty diligent about it. Well we had just crossed a very busy intersection and made our way down the block. When we approached the next spot to cross, we all joined hands. Wait...1...3.. 4..5. Where is number 2? Where in the hell is number 2? We frantically looked around but she was gone. Quickly it began to occur to me how very bad this could be. There were so many people...everywhere. I told my oldest to run back to the last intersection we crossed.  She was free and ready to go. As she took off, I flung #5 out of his baby carrier. Handed him off to my husband and took off running right behind my oldest. When I approached the light, I saw #2 right away. There she was, at the head of the crowd on the other side of the street. We anxiously waited for the walk light to appear. I'm holding my hand out so she knows to wait. When it was our turn we ran to each other, hugging in the street. Apparently she had decided to sit in the shade at that intersection while we waited to cross. We didn't notice in the wall of people, we had crossed minus one little hand. In a split second everything could have changed. We are home safe now. Happy we managed to avoid disaster and survive another day.