vent

I really should be in listening to W's sermon right now, but C. is fussy and gets really upset if I leave her in the nursery for very long, so I'm in W's office typing this. I am so mad I could spit, to borrow a phrase from my grandmother. Today is the first day of fall Sunday School. I dropped M. off in her class and told her and her teacher I would be back to pick her up for worship. I had some things to do here during Sunday School (I know I should be going to Sunday School myself, that's coming later...) I was talking with our nursery person when I realized, oops! Sunday School was over 2 minutes ago. I say goodbye and walk down to M's Sunday School room. No one is there. The lights are off and the door is shut. I look around. No M. I ask some of the other adults who are standing around talking. No one has seen M. I and about 5 other people (including W. who is in his robe ready to start church in 10 minutes) are looking frantically around the building for her. Where is she? I should state that M. has never run off - she normally sticks to one of us or the adult we leave her with like glue. She does not just disappear. Finally I find one of her Sunday School teachers who says, "Oh, have you seen N. (another teacher)? She was going to take M. into church and find you." Sure enough, I go into the sanctuary for the 2nd time looking and there is M., sitting next to N. and her daughter, looking very quiet. I told N. in no uncertain terms that I needed one of the teachers to wait in the Sunday School room for me to come pick up M. each week and that I had been frantic trying to figure out where she had gone. She apologized and said, "but she was right here with me. J. (the teacher I finally found who said M. was with N.) was supposed to tell you." I am so mad. I was practically shaking to keep from shouting at these women, who are now acting like "we were just trying to help." It makes me even more frustrated because I have spent the last year evidently talking to a wall when I have said over and over again that parents need to pick their children up after Sunday School and Children's Church, that it is not safe for the kids to just leave and find mom and dad somewhere, that it is far too easy if we just let them out at the end of class for someone to get lost. And today, all my dire warnings that these women have brushed off for the last year came true - and it was my kid who was lost. And scared, although they don't know her well enough to see it. I was able to talk to M. for a minute before church started to say that I was sorry I wasn't there to get her and sorry if she was scared and to tell her I'm not mad at her (she's 3 years old and was doing what someone in authority told her to - it's not her fault. The adults are the ones who messed up big time.) She looked relieved and gave me a hug, but it still makes me so mad. And I feel bad, because I know that we have spent years, literally, working on getting her to separate from me easily and be confident that I will be back as I told her I would. This is an on-going issue for M. - the fear of mom not coming back - and I am afraid we've been set back months now. GGGGGRRRRRRR!
Okay, I feel better now that is off my chest. Should head back to church......