When I was little there was nothing I loved more than carting tiny toy animals around.  To this day I still have my little plastic turtles I got from the tops of cupcakes.  Oh how I loved them — and still do.  My little one has just discovered the joys of pocket pets which her daddy bought her.  They come in a “blind bag” (to force you to buy a gazillion if your kiddo wants to collect them) and with a tiny little pet carrier.  As fate would have it, she got an Alaskan Malamute named Yukon and a very sneaky Spaniel named Sadie.  She had them less than an hour when Sadie broke free from her carrier, landing somewhere in the yard.  Of course it was dark by then.  My beloved used his iPhone flashlight trying to find her but with no luck.  Our little one cried herself to sleep and we promised her it would somehow be OK.  Early the next morning I got up to look for the runaway Spaniel.  Marrying a man who would lose his own appendages if they were not attached to his body has taught me a thing or two about the need for patience.  Growing up my daddy infused a type of methodicalness in my every day life that I employed out of habit.  I began making a careful sweet from up to down and left to right.  My Baby Doll came outside in the windy chill and asked anxiously if I had found her.  “Not yet” I said with my head tucked down.  She then asked if we could pray as she pressed her little hand in mine.  We said a short simple prayer and I told her to go back inside while I kept looking.  JUST as I was about to give up, I saw my little one’s precious toy.  There she was nestled among the leaves staring straight at me with her bright blue eyes.  The Canadian writer Douglas Coupland said:

“There are three things we cry about in life, things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.”

For my little one, this tiny pet qualified as all three.  See if you can spot the little Spaniel pictured above.  I swung my baby doll around and around as she giggled with glee.  Sadie had spent the night out in the cold but seemed glad to be reunited with Yukon and home safe; lost and found.