Let me start by first saying that Trinity was never actually missing. I have to say that, because people like my mother will be reading this and having their own personal heart attacks until they get to the end and find out that everything was okay.

Last night we came back from having a fabulous dinner at De Donde Eres, and while Andy was giving Rai a ride back to her house, I was getting Trinity’s bath ready. We were in the kitchen and I went to check on the bath water, with Trinity following me. I turned around, and she wasn’t there. I went back into the kitchen calling her name, and she wasn’t there. I walked more quickly to my office and didn’t see her. Then I checked the front terrace, to see if she walk out the entryway, but she wasn’t there. That’s when the adrenaline kicked into high gear. I ran back into the bathroom to see if maybe she was under the sink, and I didn’t see her. Then I ran to the kitchen and checked behind the high chair. Then I ran to my office to look again, now calling her name frantically. There was still no sign of her. I decided to run upstairs to see if she decided to climb the stairs by herself, which she never does. As I was heading out the entryway, I was screaming her name in a voice that had become uncomfortably high-pitched and girly. Just as I was about to climb the stairs I heard her plaintive cries. She was somewhere in the downstairs living room. I ran back in, following the cries and finally saw her. She was sitting in the corner behind the water bottle. She had been quietly watching the show of mom running from room to room. She only spoke up because she thought I was going to leave her alone downstairs.

I quickly picked her up and hugged her close to me while I tried to get my breathing back to normal. As I wiped the tears away from her face and told her everything was okay, I was doing all I could to not burst into tears myself. The whole episode only lasted a matter of minutes, but my heart was still racing, and I had seriously high doses of adrenaline pumping through me. I already knew it, but it had become clearer to me last night: the walking-thing is going to be challenge.