Jana Kramer had an emotional experience at a park where her daughter, Jolie Rae, 4½, wandered off with another kid.
Kramer shared the experience with Instagram, encouraging other parents to keep present as possible to avoid a similar situation.
“Had the absolute scariest thing happen today at the park,” she began her caption.
“We took the kids cause it was a nice day and we needed to get out and took them to a park we know and love. We were going down the slides, swinging and having a great time. Jolie met a sweet little girl and they started running around.”
Kramer, who shares Jolie and son Jace Joseph, 2, with husband Mike Caussin, shared that while she watches her kids “like hawks,” it was hard to see Jolie when she was running around the park with her newfound friend.
“Mike was also patrolling too but we both went down the slide with Jace because Jolie was running around,” she continued.
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“But then the next minute a lady walked up to me and said ‘your daughter just got into a white suv.’ My heart went straight to my gut and I said WHAT?!!!”
Kramer “immediately ran as fast as I could to the parking lot,” she recalled, “where I then saw Jolie and the little girl coming around the back of the car to which the little girls mom was in car.”
“I clung to Jolie so quick and caught my breath and tried to turn off all the ‘what if’s’ going through my brain… It was an eye opening experience especially for someone like me who is super present,” she said. “Literally in a blink of a second…that’s how fast a kid could be taken.”
She went on to say that while it was just a scare, it was also “a reminder for all of us to stay present, be aware because they might not end up like today and be watchful like the amazing mom that came up to me.”
“I never had the talk with Jolie,” she said. “I think I expected her to know she can’t leave without mommy or daddy and plus I was always watching. I’m grateful we had the talk today.”
Previously, Kramer shared how she considers her “biggest parenting fail” to be “[letting] the mommy shamers just really affect” her when she first became a mom.
“Because I didn’t breastfeed and I didn’t cook up their food, I gave them frozen meals — that was really hard for me because I took it personal,” she said. “Like, ‘I’m not a good mom. I should be making their food and I should be not giving them food out of a jar.’ “
She recalled letting to “so many people make me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job” when she knows better now. “Now [I know] that I was doing the very best I could and that I was a good mom,” she said.
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