Before you have a child, the idea of losing a child is unfathomable. I remember listening to radio reports about people whose children managed to get out of the house and lost in the woods for days on end and I would think, “How is this possible? What were those parents doing that they would manage to lose their own child?”

I also thought that those little leashes that people used on their children were barbaric. I couldn't imagine why someone would want to keep their precious child on a leash like a bad dog.

Well, now I know.

Gratefully, I have not experienced the drama of losing my child into the woods, but I have lost my child momentarily in Wal-Mart. And that moment was one of the longest moments of my entire life. I was shopping happily for shorts and T-shirts for my four-year-old. My children were bumping and thumping around next to me like delightful little tree monkeys. I looked down at a price tag for all of 15 seconds and when I looked up, my two-year-old was gone. “Where's Diego?” I asked my older son, Nino, my voice rising six octaves with fear. The feeling of panic that filled my entire body was indescribable. The world in front of me was a sea of clothes racks and he could be beneath any one of them, or he could already be on the other side of the parking lot having a Big Mac at McDonald's, as far as I knew.

No more than 30 seconds and 10 frantic shouts later, Diego emerged, beaming with pride and obviously thrilled with himself. “Hide!” he said as he jumped out of a rack of hot pink cargo pants.

Apparently, the clothes section in any store is just about the worst place to take a toddler who has just discovered the innumerable joys of hide-and-seek. Unless you are wearing your toddler, it is virtually impossible to shop for any type of clothes without your child finding a way to hide from you. Losing my son was a very humbling moment for me. Maybe child-leashes aren't so bad after all.