I took the girls out for a walk to see the Super Moon. I didn't get the perfect picture of the moon, but I found a lost child instead.

People are supposed to go out alone in Singapore at the moment. Someone is allowed to accompany small children, but I hadn't taken all 3 kids out at the same time in quite a while, because it's so much easier with 3 kids and a second adult. Also because we are a bit of a mob and we're all trying to keep our distance right now.

I wanted all of us the see the moon, so I figured it would be fine and we wouldn't go far. Being at the Equator it gets dark here at 7 pm (plus or minus 15 minutes) everyday of the year. We slipped out in our masks at dusk and passed a neighbourhood girl waiting at the back gate on her bike.

We said Hello, but kept going. The kids know the no stopping rule now. I hesitated, because she looked alone and talked to her for a moment. She said she was waiting for her Auntie. Auntie is what most kids call their Helpers/live-in maids. She looked about 8 years old, which is a pretty independent age in Singapore. All of MsC's friends wander about the complex alone. We left the girl there inside the complex.

My girls had their scooters and walking quickly I was weaving through the crowd trying to keep up with them. There were a lot of people out, and not just independent walkers/joggers; it looked like lots of families. The lights in the scooters’ wheels helped me keep track of my kids, especially since it was really dark soon. I was a bit frazzled by the crowd, the kids speed on the scooters, and how fast night fell. It wasn't long till we were down about 10 minutes away and about to enter the nature park.

That's when the girl with the bike appeared again. I noticed she was still alone. But I figured just like I'd just been doing with the kids on their scooters a few minutes before, that her Auntie was probably just behind trying to catch up, but I kept an eye on her.

After the kids had all been circling for a few minutes. The girl asked me to help her find her Auntie. I asked if she knew her Auntie's phone number, but she didn't. I was pretty sure they hadn't passed us, so I told her we would all head back to our complex together. I assumed we'd run into her Auntie within a few minutes.

I know her Auntie by sight and we didn't see her. I was starting to feel kind of confused now, but now I was tracking 4 kids in the dark and they had all taken off at high speed trailing each other together. We were quite close to home before I was able to get all 4 with me at the same time. My kids tend to go ahead and then loop back every few minutes, but we also didn't want to loose the other girl.

When I got everyone stopped together, the girl's story changed again and now she was certain her Auntie was in the park. She wanted us to walk into the park with her, because she was scared to go in there in the dark.

There's a good amount of jungle in that park! I'm not sure I'd go in there by myself. This girl was just an acquaintance. I didn't know where she lived. I tried to convince her we could walk her to her house, but she wasn't going for that. She was sure she needed to find her Auntie first. I tried to tell her I was sure her Auntie would have gone home when they got separated. Her Auntie had gone right home.

The girl was finally able to remember her mom's phone number and call her mom. We played eye-spy while we waited for her mom to locate us on the Boardwalk. The girl still didn't realize that she had been lost this whole time. She had been missing for 25 minutes and our complex's Security guys had been searching for her.

I'm so glad that little girl stopped me on the Boardwalk rather than going into the Park alone. Even if you exclude the possibility of someone taking off with her, there's still poisonous snakes, steep beaches, and a bit of dense jungle to get lost in.

I feel so bad that I didn't wait with her for her Auntie when I saw her the first time. I considered it, but my 2 littlest have no sense of social distancing, and the girl looked quite content waiting. Turns out she is actually only 6 and just looks big for her age. That is one of the challenges of being in an expat community. When everyone is from different parts of the world, judging ages is really difficult.

I was totally freaked out by the thought of missing children and took my girls home straight home for a big talk about what to do if we get separated from our adult. We talk about this frequently, but as you can see, sometimes they just don't realize they are lost.