Lost and Found

Boo lost her purse last week. Big deal, right? What could possibly be in the purse of a seven-year-old? Sand? Chap-stick?

Well, actually she had a pretty good stash of money in it; she’d been saving her allowance, chore money, and tooth-fairy money for a while. (She recently had a run of lost teeth, resulting in about four falling out within a week! Cha-ching!) She had all her cash in a wallet inside a purple purse.

So what did she do with this receptacle of her life savings?

She took it to the playground.

Obviously, I have warned her not to do this. In fact, she has been expressly forbidden from taking her purse outside to play.

But she took it out while I was out of the house and her daddy was watching her. So I didn’t know about it until the next day when we prepared for a trip to the mall to look for school shoes.

“Trip to the mall” in Boo-speak equals “Chance to purchase useless and easily-broken accessories at Claire’s,” so she went to get her purse as we were all getting in the car.

She looked in her room, and then remembered that she’d taken it to the playground, and of course, forgotten and LEFT IT THERE.

So she dashed off to the park behind our house to see if the purse was still there.

Big surprise; it wasn’t.

At this point, we were all waiting for her. Boo came dragging back to the car, purse-less and sobbing, knowing she was in for a big Mommy-told-you-so speech.

I did not disappoint on that score, I admit.

Although I don’t know if she heard much of the speech, what with the miserable crying all the way to the mall.

After a while I started to feel bad and stopped the I-told-you-so’s to offer a weak, “Maybe someone found your purse and is holding it for you.”

She just kept crying.

It was a tough mall trip.

She did get over it after an hour or so though, and the next day asked her friends if they’d seen her purse. No one had.

I figured it was good and gone, and that it would be a hard-learned lesson for Boo about being careful with her things. (I did manage to lay off the I-told-you-so’s after the initial speech and let the experience speak for itself.)

Then a week later she got the purse back, astonishingly enough.

A lady who lives on the other side of the playground saw Boo out playing and brought it out to her. (Boo had a picture of herself in the ID pocket of the wallet, instead of, say, her name and address. Seven-year old logic strikes again.)

Boo came running back inside to tell me the purse had been found. She said she thanked the lady profusely. And did a celebratory dance, no doubt.

And of course, the next day required a commemorative trip to Claire’s.

Flavored lip gloss and a fake jeweled cell phone, anyone?