February 16 – “Hey … Happy Birthday, Josh and the Tale of the missing cap”

Figured I should put that in the title.  Josh doesn’t spend much time on FaceBook, so he’ll probably never see it anyway, but now he can say he got an official online, embedded in the blog birthday greeting from the old man. 

Cailyn came over before school today and made a blog request.  She wanted me to say that she has a blister on her big toe.  So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.  The announcement of the decade.  Cailyn Vaughan’s great toe has been invaded by a blossoming blister.  More details as they arise.

Speaking of Cailyn (and I guess I do that a lot, don’t I?), when she was driving away from here the other day (well, when her Mommy was driving away), the small cap to a tiny little pencil sharpener she had leapt from its already precarious bindings and flew somewhere into the abyss that was our street … or maybe the grassy, oleander laden section of our lawn … or maybe it never left the confines of the car.  The sky was already darkening, and we had already made our way back inside.  Cailyn made the realizations and yelped her concern to Mommy.  And of course, being the wonderful Mommy that she is, even after an extremely long day in the operating room, April dutifully pulled to the side of the road and performed an initial search operation.  Sadly the darkness overwhelmed her efforts, so she texted us and requested a follow-up operation when the sun would offer more substantial assistance.

Now, we are grandparents, don’t you know (Thought I’d throw in a little Canadian-speak there).  A request like that was certainly more than I could bear to lay in wait until the next day.  I grabbed my cell phone, flipped it over to flashlight mode, and headed outside.  Now here’s where I say a little something about my incredible dedication to the cause.  I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  Oh, and sandals.  And the temperature was on the low side of 55.  In short, it was getting awfully cold on the Island.  But still I pressed on, now joined by Chris in our desperate search for the missing piece of plastic.  Wide sweeps.  Nothing.  Intricate detailed analysis of one area at a time.  Still nothing.  And just as we were preparing to postpone the search until morning, our neighbor Mario walked out of his house and wanted to know what we were doing, walking around in the middle of the street, all hunched over like we were.  I hadn’t though until then what we must have looked like.  (Not that it would have changed much.  I guess I would have at least thrown on a jacket).  A bent-over old dude and his gorgeous wife roaming around with a flashlight?  Maybe they lost their dentures?  And then when Mario grabbed an industrial sized flashlight and joined in the search, it became a real event.  If we had started just a little earlier we probably could have made a block party out of it.  The rest of the neighbors were probably in bed already, though.  It was after 7:30.  Mario did find one of the toys that had been in the same batch as the missing cap.  Plastic lips with a whistle inside.  Great fun.  But apparently she hadn’t missed that one yet.  All of our efforts proved futile, though, so we called it a night.

Early the next morning, however, just at daybreak when I was out picking up the paper, I couldn’t resist the urge to enter DadDad mode once again.  I mean, come on.  If I could find that hunk of plastic I could be a real hero to a certain six-year-old.  But no such luck.  A while later when Chris and I went for our morning walk, we tried again, also to no avail.  That’s when she told me that Mario had been out earlier and was putting in his share search and rescue efforts. 

Sadly, our search proved futile.  We hadn’t heard whether the car search on the home front had been any more successful, but we vowed to keep our eyes peeled (or would that be “pealed”?  I’ll have to look that one up).  I was disappointed and almost hated to say anything when Cailyn came over the next afternoon.  As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry.  She never brought it up.  All was forgotten.  My grand plans to make a replacement were unneeded.  I was going to craft one out of wood, but that seemed like overkill.  My next option was duct tape.  You can make anything with duct tape.  So, if she ever brings it up again, I’m thinking duct tape is the way to go. 

Hebrews 13:16 says, “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

Father, give me once again the ability of a child to rebound so masterfully and completely from disappointment.  Amen.