The things we'll do... - Suburban Shalom

Over the weekend I, along with my mom, sister, and niece, took the girls to an arts and crafts festival downtown. There were talented artisans of all sorts displaying and selling their wares. The whole scene was full of local culture and entertaining for adults, but a little uneventful for the 5-and-under crowd. So, I promised the girls we would find something fun to do. And, tucked away in a corner was one lonely children’s booth at which kids could pick out a pair of “designer” sunglasses and decorate their own art project using glitter, tissue paper, and cut-out shapes with adhesive. Perfect.

So, the Preschooler carefully made a tissue-covered teddy bear, and the Toddler recklessly crafted a blue-glittered butterfly.

Well, as the wind started to pick up, the pink tissue and the blue glitter were becoming a continuous source of both litter and frustration. So, I found the nearest trash can and tried to shake off some of the excess “art” from the crafts while no one was watching. Most unfortunately, a gust of wind blew through right as I was doing the shaking, and I somehow dropped the teddy bear art into the deep dark trash can. Hoping that maybe the Preschooler had already forgotten about her craft, I told my mom what had happened in hopes of hearing her affirm my initial thought that we should just quickly move on and not worry about it. But, instead, she asked: “Well, can you not reach in there and get it? You know she’s going to want it.”

Sometimes there’s a huge chasm of difference between being able to do something and actually wanting to do something. Yes, technically I could reach in there and get it, I suppose…

So, what did I do?

Of course, I humbled myself to standing on the busy curb and rummaging through the corn dog and funnel cake infested trash to fish out the tissue-covered teddy bear art while passers-by looked on in wonder and amusement. And, this is what I salvaged…