Lost!

Thursday evenings are hectic at our house.  Ballet is at 5:00.  An after school homework rush is followed by the changing into the ballet clothes ordeal.  We return home at 6:30, get dinner on the table and eaten, and then I have to leave the house again at 7:15. 

Last Thursday sounded like this:

"Did you leave it in the car?"

"No...I think I gave it to you."

I went out to the car to look, a task I usually make her do but she was already in her jammies, so I took some pity.

"It's not in the car, and I'm sure you never gave it to me, so where is it?"

"I took it out of my ballet bag and gave it to you at dance."

Looking through my purse in case I'd had a case of temporary amnesia, "Nope...I'm sure you didn't."

Crying, "I don't know where it is!"

The volume was escalating just as my husband walked in the door, at 7:00.  "What's going on?"

To him, "We can't find the ping."  To her, "Could you have taken it out and left it somewhere at ballet?"

"I don't KNOW!"

"O.k. ... just find the back-up meter and test."

The phone call to the ballet studio went surprisingly smoothly.  The receptionist seemed to understand that she was looking for a glucometer in a black case, and was able to find it in the dressing room.  She would be there until 9:00.

I inhaled my dinner and practiced for the Grand Am as I zoomed to the ballet studio.  Thanking the receptionist profusely, I dashed back out to the car and was miraculously only a few minutes late for my next activity, albeit a bit frazzled.

The next morning, my child said, "You seemed really mad, Mommy." 

"Well, I was kind-of mad," I said.  "That meter is really important!  It's the remote control to your pump, and it would be difficult for us to replace.  So it's something we need to be extra careful with, right?"

"I know, mommy...I don't know what happened."

Then I had to remind her she's not the only one who's done it. "It's o.k.  We all make mistakes.  Remember when I left it in that restaurant in the city?  And Daddy had to go back the next day to pick it up?"  She did.  "But you know what?  Since that day, if I've had it in my purse, I never leave somewhere without making sure it's still there.  I bet you'll do the same now."

"I bet I will."