'Have you seen this child?...'

Had my first 'milk carton moment' today...
(Little One is fine, by the way...)
So, here's how it happened...
Little One was late to school this morning because she had a check up at the Doc's...
Walked her in to the front office...following protocol of the public school system, I handed all the necessary paperwork to the office secretary...signed her in to school---on the computer....
(Little One was thrilled that the 'pink slip' matched her outfit perfectly...)
Then there was a moment of awkwardness...
I wanted to walk her to her classroom that is about 300 miles from the front office to make sure she got there OK---(she has only been at this kindergarten for about 8 days now)...being cautious because God knows I would die if anything happened to her betwixt points A and B.
The office lady kind of poo-pooed me as being an overly emotional/way too cautious/psycho hover mother 'new parent'...and asked Little One if she knew where her classroom was...
(they encourage independence for the 5 year olds.)
Of course my big girl nodded 'yes'...and looked at me...
(as office lady was looking at me like, '...see?')
SO...
against my gut feeling, and trying to 'go' with the 'flow'...I let her go.
I...let my 'big girl' go....
I watched her wave to me through the glass doors....her skinny little legs walking toward her classroom....
(all the while thinking '...no. This is not right.')
Then thinking to myself,'OK...she is fine...stop over reacting...she's fine...she will be fine...'
45 minutes after I was home...my cell rings.
It is the Principal from her school.
She was doing all the obligatory intros, and had Little One's teacher on speaker phone...and was it ok if they put ME on speaker phone----
(All I can think of is 'what the HELL is going on! WHAT! WHAT!!!!)
Turns out, Little One never made it to her classroom....she LEFT out a side door and went on the playground!
Thank you God for the teacher who saw her and took her in to her class...
She was not scared....just said 'I got lost'.
Needless to say...with my heart in my throat...she was fine.
(...but what if she had wandered in to Lynn road? What if she had happened across someone who wanted her to 'see the puppies I found'...)
Hopefully, after this, the school will take seriously a mother's intuition...or at least take 10 minutes out of all the paperwork on their desk, and WALK a child to their class!