Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Street Walker

Gotta love alternate Wednesdays. I swear, I do more on my "day off" than most other days, but eventually I get a break. Like now. So I'm blogging instead of any one of a million other things I could be doing. Trust me, I have lists.

This morning, after BD got Playette up and started for the day, we got ourselves all prettified and prepared for a session with the new ST via the school district. I fought this pairing for a while, eventually realizing that the actual lady wasn't as bad as my idea of what she would be like, so, yeah. I was wrong. She's pretty good. Imagine that.

She met with Playette at daycare last week and left me some very interesting notes. We then had a phone conversation, in which she came off very competent and patient. Today, though, was the first time that we were with Playette together.

It went well. Her style is much like our style when it comes to communication, which is great. Plus, it lines up well with the Communicating Partners model that I'm beginning to love so much. It's not all that different from the private ST except that it's not $115/hour out of our pockets, so, yeah, um, suffice it to say that we will be making some changes in that area very soon.

After ST, we went to the pool for Aqua Therapy, which was a lot of fun. I always enjoy that and as much as we can make therapy less like work, the happier I think all of us will be. As much as we like AT, and PT as well, we've cut back significantly lately. No one wins when the parents are burnt-out. No one.

So, back to ST. I showed her all of the many, many cups we've used over the last year or so. Here's a sample:


I swear, it feels like the pursuit for the perfect cup is neverending.**

Well, not quite, I guess. Because while I was showing the ST our cup collection, I remembered that there was one more. I really, really like this cup, but have no idea where we got it.


BD and I think it may have come from a Burger King kid's meal, purchased somewhere between here and Los Angeles, but really...huh?

Since Playette is still having trouble with creating a good seal when drinking and this all just kind of came together in my head this morning, I decided, after I dropped her off at daycare, that I'd try to find the thing.

[Insert wild goose chase here.]

Where we live, there's this one street that's lined with fast food places. If you want that kind of stuff, you go there. So, after I went to the BK by us and struck out, that's where I went. I started at Wendy's, crossed over to the KFC/Long John Silver combo, down and back across the big street to Wendy's, and then stopped at the Carl's Jr./Green Burrito combo joint on my way back.

I felt a little silly walking the streets, asking bewildered cashiers to see their kid's meal cups, but whatever. You do what you gotta do.

I smell like grease.

I didn't find the cup.

But you know what? I didn't give up. When I got home, I Googled it.

I saw one on eBay for $10.

Then it hit me. I learned from "Dragon Tales" the other day that you're supposed to look for clues like a detective, even if you don't have your kit because that serpent thingee stole it. Or something. (What, am I not supposed to listen while I'm doing Playette's hair? I'm totally in the running for Parent of the Year since I know what my kids is watching. Snerk.)

I went and dug the cup out of the dishwasher and saw that it had a phone number on the bottom. I called it. They transferred me to someone's voicemail. I left a message. Five minutes later I got a call back and the person on the other end offered to mail me some samples out of the kindness of their heart.

Wow.

I did it.

And it wasn't even on my to-do list.

Huzzah!




** If that clip doesn't do anything for you, I give up. I keep watching the first 10 seconds over and over and over again.

3 comments:

Wendy P said...

you ROCK! Big latino teacher dragon whose name I can't currently remember would be very proud of you!!

And salad-in-the-mail is awesome - thank you for brightening up my rawther difficult month.

sheree said...

you know what...I have found that many of life's most imprtant lessons can be found in countless episodes of Dragon Tales.

I need to come to Monterey. I am missing you guys!

Christina M said...

wow you def deserve parent of the year. You are my idol :)