The beach: the day I thought he was gone

I'll go ahead and tell you: yesterday was traumatic for me, but it turned out okay in the end. (I don't want you guys to suffer the same anxiety I did over it, so I'm "spoiling the ending" for you now.) I'd already been thinking about beach safety earlier in the week, because on Monday we called 911 on behalf of a child who had gotten separated from his parents.

He was about our kids' ages (somewhere between 6 and 8), and a couple who'd been walking the beach had been following him for -- they said -- about an hour when they stopped and asked if he belonged with us. Andrew immediately called the police, who said they'd just received a report of a missing child. ("JUST"? I was appalled.)

At any rate, Andrew and the other couple were able to reunite the child with his father up on the road, just off the beach, and we don't have any other details to share ... we were just glad that it had a happy ending and wasn't a tragedy that ended up on the news.

That situation, combined with the Casey Anthony not-guilty verdict this week, had me really thinking about vigilant parenting, dangerous situations and just how much I love my kids in general.

So yesterday morning, we were all out on the beach together, 14 adults and 14 kids. The surf was really active, stronger than it had been earlier in the week, but we were all still playing in it.

At one point, Grayson was out riding the waves on his body board and I was taking pictures of everyone on the beach and those who were in the water (very few at that time). I saw Nathaniel heading out to meet Grayson in the ocean, so I turned around and walked to our chairs to put my camera down and go out myself. I wanted to tell Grayson that Nathaniel wanted to play out there, and also put in my two cents that on a day like yesterday, I felt like there needed to be a minimum 2:1 ratio of kids to parents in the water. It just felt too dangerous to let them play as independently in the water as they had been on previous days.

When I got my camera stowed away and turned back around to face the water, I couldn't see Nathaniel anywhere. It took me several moments to scan both the ocean and the beach for him, and when I didn't find him, I felt that panic begin to rise. I started walking rapidly down to the water, still scanning everywhere, looking for his teal green rashguard. Nothing.

I waved and yelled to Grayson, "Where's Nathaniel?" He looked around, didn't see him, and started coming in. Andrew, who was in the shallows, yelled, "He's in the hole! You just can't see him!" (The kids had dug a deep hole in the sand and had been in and out of it all morning.) I started walking into the water while Tiffany went over to the hole and looked in. She looked back at me and shook her head No.

I went more quickly into the water now, heading in up to my waist. I was dragging my feet along the bottom, waving my hands through the water, looking for any sign of him at all. Someone thought to call all the other kids in from the water and corners of the beach to sit together in the sand and not move. Andrew headed North up the beach, in the direction the current was pulling, and waded in. I kept going deeper, up to my neck. All I saw was ocean. And ocean. And more empty ocean.

I kept picturing Nathaniel getting bowled over by one of the big waves, not being able to get his footing again, being swept farther and farther out. I knew he'd be trying to fight his way to the surface, screaming for help but unable to get to the top, to breathe. I was BESIDE MYSELF with worry and almost outright panic.

Tiffany walked up to the boardwalk that goes back to the house to see if he had gone up there, which he HAD. She came back and everyone waved me back in from the ocean. He was okay. PRAISE GOD, HE WAS SAFE.

Once I was able to speak again, I asked him what had happened. He said that Grayson had told him that the waves were great and he should go get his boogie board. (And Grayson said he'd told him that like 15 minutes earlier, not 10 seconds earlier.) What Nathaniel didn't realize was that his boogie board was tied to one of our chairs, NOT back at the house. And because he had passed me as I was putting my camera back in the bag, he thought I had seen him heading up to the house.

I know it was a fluke, but we have a HARD AND FAST RULE here that if you leave the beach for any reason, you have to tell an adult. It's not optional. And somehow, with at least half of the 14 adults sitting right there as he walked by, not a one of us saw him go.

It all happened in less than five minutes, but you don't need me to tell you that tragedy can strike in less than five minutes. It was the worst thing that's ever happened to me ... and to an extent, it was imaginary. It was all "could have, might have, would have," but I was nauseated for hours afterward, and now, as I'm recounting it to you, I have tears welling in my eyes. It was more scary than Jake's birth (which I haven't told you about yet, but I will) and more terrifying than when I thought I'd lost the baby.

Safety first, Internet, safety first.