Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Lost but never found

It rained yesterday (insert shocked gasp here--it is San Diego and hasn't rained since, well, forever) and instead of going home to play, M insisted that we be out in the rain. An since it wasn't raining that hard and the day was warm anyway, I decided to oblige. After all, it's not like we get many chances, and besides that, I was having a really lousy day to begin with. Alternative fun with kids--yeah!

So we went to run a couple errands where we could walk outside and enjoy the rain. And enjoy it we did, right up until I realized I'd lost Kaitlyn's sippy cup. Her cute, girly pink sippy cup that I absolutely loved above all sippy cups. I remembered setting it down on her tray when we opened up the stroller, and then after that it was a cacophony of distracting excitement:

M: "Look--puddles! Let's run through the puddles!"
K: "Look--lots of things to pick up! And they're breakable too! What fun to scare mom!"
M&K: "Clothes! Let's pile them up in the stroller as if we're the ones doing the shopping!"

And the next thing I knew, we were back in the car and K was asking for her water. Which I no longer had. Because it was somewhere else. Where else? I couldn't tell you that. I wracked my mom-brain (which I swear gave more than a few brain cells to each adorable child), but all I could remember was setting that fantastic pink sippy cup on the tray and then letting it disappear in a loss of my own distracted doing. For shame!

We had lunch, where K refused to drink because we wouldn't let her hold the cupful of water all by herself (another shocked gasp here), and then moped back home. Where I found the pink sippy cup sitting by the sink. Because apparently she had been using it the day before. Confused, I scrounged through all the drawers trying to identify the missing sippy cup. And then I realized (gasp) that it was not the pink cup but the blue cup, M's favorite blue truck cup that he still uses in bed at night. The one that had a twin, which we also lost.

This was even worse. Instead of my own disappointment, it was going to be M's, and instead of one long drive with your kid pitifully begging for water you no longer have, it was going to be weeks of begging for the precious truck cup.

And then that night, when I was putting dishes away, I opened the drawer (which I swear I'd looked in before) to find the truck cup sitting right there on top (go ahead, gasp again. I certainly did).

"WHAT CUP DID SHE LOSE?" I cried out in exasperation, desperation, and general wholehearted confusion.

"The green one," said B calmly, who hadn't seen the cup all day but somehow managed to remember correctly.

Oh. You mean the green one that we have in three different patterns, none of which anyone particularly likes? Okay then, carry on.

You'd think I'd be happy about how everything wound up, but the whole ordeal pointed out that I've been worrying about the wrong thing all along. Who cares about the green sippy cup? I want to know where I left my mind.

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