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I just don't know how you could forget a baby. My older children would have surely reminded me . You'd think.

Ten years ago when my third child was four or five years old, we all took off in our van to pick my mother-in-law up at the airport. I had four kids at the time. We were halfway there and my oldest son (age 10) said, "Where's Mikey?" WHAT????? It took him that long to realize he wasn't with us? That was before we all had cell phones, so we couldn't call the house to reassure him. We ended up driving back only to find him sitting at the computer playing a game. When we told him that we'd all left without him, he said, "Cool! It's like Home Alone!"

Here's a little story on how this can happen:

On a cool day (~50 degrees) a number of years ago my wife and I went to church with our three small children and my addled father-in-law. I dropped my wife off at the front door with her Dad and I parked the car with the kids in the back of the van. The kids were 4, 3, and one and a half years old at the time. As soon as I parked the car my two kids popped out and I was concerned that they'd get hit in the parking lot so I jumped out of our minivan. All this time my one and a half year old was sitting silently in the seat directly behind me. My mind was concerned about the two older kids and I half thought my wife had our little one so I proceeded into church completely unaware that I had left her.

The ONLY time I thought something was wrong was when I went to her Sunday school class to pick her up and I asked where she was. That's when they told me she was never dropped off. My heart sunk like a stone in realization and I sprinted out to our car. There was my precious baby girl who had obviously cried herself to sleep. Although she has no recollection of this event, to this very day I have nightmares about this incident and will go to my grave remembering that look on her face when I opened the sliding door.

My kids are still fairly young and we ALWAYS do a head count and verbally confirm with one or the other, "You have so and so, and I have so and so." I am deeply thankful to God that this was not a tragedy that I would have to live with for rest of my life.