Mama Bean wonders if these things only happen to her...

On Tuesday morning, I took the kidlets to drop off some veggies at the Food Bank and then grocery shopping. It's taken awhile to figure out the logistics of getting the two of them ready and out the door in a minimum of time. Right now, that means starting, oh say about, half and hour before I actually want to leave. It doesn't always take half an hour... but just in case...

It's kind of fun now that Bean can walk out the door and down the steps and over to the car by himself. I used to take them in two trips - lock Sprout's bucket onto its base, come back with Bean and into his straps. Now, theoretically, I take one trip. Usually, this means hustling over to clip Sprout's bucket in, while Bean is still perusing the flower beds and kicking at pine cones, or circling the car to see if some door is open on a more interesting seat than his own boring, strappy seat. (For example, the seat behind the wheel. That's the door he really wishes to be open.) On Tuesday, Bean was all ready to climb into his seat, except my camera was there. So I put it on the roof, and strapped him in. Then I had to grab the bags of chard from the garage and put them in the trunk, and we were off!

We took four bags of chard, which was about 16 pounds. I parked right out front, Bean really enjoyed coming in with me. The lady at the desk even gave him a little fun-size chocolate bar. Then we went to the Superstore on the way home, which is not our usual Superstore, and for some reason that's really disorienting. Isn't it weird how you get used to these things? Somehow, even when I think we don't need many things, I end up spending too much. I hate how the Food In Boxes adds up so quickly (crackers, cereal, coffee, stuff in boxes, you know. Not to mention diapers and stuff, oi.) If I was only buying produce and dairy, life would be so much cheaper.

Sprout fell asleep in her bucket at the store and then again on the way home. She is so much better at this than Bean ever was. He was such a Schedule Baby, and his sleep cues included his Swaddle and his Crib, he didn't (still doesn't) like sleeping out of the house. It was nice that his schedule was so predictable, and since he was our only baby at the time, it was easy to work around. But now, with two, it's so good that Sprout is adaptable :)

When we got home, I herded Bean into the backyard, to play with his trucks in the garden dirt. This has been his favourite thing to do for a week or so. I am getting more comfortable letting him play while I do stuff in the house, checking every minute (Thirty seconds? Ten seconds? He's very cute to watch, runs around telling himself stories, caramel highlights in his hair caught by the perfect Autumn sunlight...) I carefully took sleeping Sprout into her room to keep napping, then started putting groceries away.

And that's when I remembered my camera on top of the car.

Hours later, many many kilometers later, taking Bean in and out of the car more than two times later, I mean seriously, how did I forget my brand new Nikon DSLR on TOP OF MY CAR???

Do you feel the sickness in your stomach that I felt in that moment? I think you do...

Will you believe me when I tell you it was still there? Srsly. I mean, you have to believe me, because I would not be blogging this story if it had fallen off the way one would expect to fall off. I would be crying a lot and then hoping Papa Bean didn't get too mad at me. I considered not telling him, except then I couldn't tell the Internet about it, so I told him, but only after making him promise not to get mad at me. And he didn't. Phew.

Somehow, in all the openings and closings of the door, the door kept closing onto part of the strap. And I suppose the material of the camera's base/body is kinda grippy. I am just crazy grateful it was still there. Does this kind of thing only happen to me? Tell me about some crazy thing you thought you lost and found again. Tell me I'm not the only one with stories like this. For one thing, it will make my husband feel better!