The case of the missing sneakers

The book resting on top of the rear windshield wiper should have been my warning.

I arrived at Chick-fil-a earlier than I anticipated, not because I was running ahead of schedule, but because my son woke up early from his nap screaming his head off. To me, it sounded like he was saying "Mom, throw me in the car and drive around some...I might go back to sleep." So that's what I did.

I hurried to be sure the beach bag I call a purse was well-stocked with snacks, sippy cups, diapers, baby food, wipes, and my wallet. Abby was left downstairs with instructions to locate her shoes while I rescued my screaming baby from the confines of his cozy crib, wiped his bottom and strapped him into his carseat. With one child and one mommy-bag in the car, I returned to get my daughter, who was insisting that she'd rather wear her Crocs. Knowing she would certainly remove slip-on shoes at an inconvenient time or place, I countered with an offer of tennis shoes. She accepted, laces were tied, and we were soon on our way.

Caleb settled down once we got on the road and I drove with relative calm to my lunch date. Abby requested that I play the bananaphone song and I refused, because frankly, I hate that song now. So we listened to Shakira instead, because "Hips Don't Lie" is just as fun to sing along to. We pulled into the Chick-fil-a parking lot and Abby immediately launched into some sort of indiscernible rant about her friend Abby Mae and chicken nuggets and playing in tunnels. I unloaded the two-year-old and used my mommy voice to instruct her to not move from my side while I unloaded the seven-month-old. It worked. With a baby on my hip and my mommy bag over my shoulder, I grabbed my daughter's perpetually sticky hand, closed the van doors and headed inside. And that's when I noticed the book.

Somehow our copy of Time for School, Mouse survived the 20 minute ride, and there it was, resting on top of my rear wiper for all the world to see, like a beacon announcing to the traffic behind me: "Hey, there's a mom in this van. And she does not have her act together."

I still haven't figured out how it got there. But it gets better.

Inside, Abby's predictions came true, and almost like we had planned it, we found her friend Abby Mae, and chicken nuggets, and tunnels to play in. I sent her to run off some energy in the play place with her friend while my friend and I fed veggie mush to our sons and wondered aloud how it was possible that our daughters were old enough to play on their own now.

Minutes later the boys were fed and it was time to retrieve the girls. I called to them from the door and waited while they tumbled down the slide, first Abby Mae, followed closely by Abby Jean. Abby Mae, still fully intact, was sent to the table. Abby Jean, in her sock feet, was sent back into the play place to find her shoes. On this day, as always, I had purposefully ignored the instruction to remove her shoes in the play area. She's clumsy enough without taking away the traction her sneakers provide. Apparently she disagrees.

We spent a few minutes looking around the floor for her shoes to no avail before I decided I'd simply find them after we ate. When lunch was through, I returned to the play area and, much to the chagrin of the other parents present, removed my shoes and climbed up into the equipment to do my own sneaker search-and-rescue. A few moments climbing around in the maze of tunnels convinced me that Abby had not simply removed her shoes. She had certainly disposed of them somewhere inconvenient and out of sight. I paused for a moment to try to think like my daughter, looked around, and saw that the gaps in the walls of the play equipment were just large enough to jam a sneaker through.

I descended back down the slide (realizing why they have a height limit for the play area) and asked my friend to stay with the kids while I went outside to look in on the equipment from the outside window. Sure enough, there it was...one lone size six sneaker trapped below the outside of the tunnel slide, accessible only through a locked gate intended to keep kids from climbing the outside of the equipment. I returned inside, informed the management of the plight of the lost sneaker and waited for them to unlock the gate for me. I squeezed through the small opening, scaled the back of the slide, climbed under the tunnel and retrieved one shoe. A quick look around the small enclosed area told me the other shoe was not there. After extracting myself and the shoe, I returned to the table with my mission only half completed.

By now, the lunch hour was in full swing and the play place was swarming with children. I did not intend to leave without that other shoe, so I returned to the play area and did the only reasonable thing I could think of.

"Excuse me!" I yelled over the din of high-pitched voices. "Who wants free ice cream?" I could see I had their attention. "I'll buy an ice cream cone for whoever helps me find my daughter's shoe. It's a small white...."

"I know where it is," a little boy shouted from somewhere nearby. I looked around and found him smiling up at me.

"It's right there," he said, pointing at a window that looked into the back of the slide (the off-limits part I had climbed in earlier). Sure enough, trapped between the Plexiglas and the side of the slide was one little size six sneaker.

My new little detective friend led me out into the restaurant so I could ask his mom if I could buy him ice cream. I'm sure she thought I was weird (wasn't I the one she saw climbing up the slide earlier?) but I explained how he had helped me and I had offered a reward, so she said it was okay, and for $1, I made her son's day.

Back in the play place, I thanked God for my bony little fingers as I poked them through the mesh wall and inched Abby's shoe up as high as it would go. Then back up the slide I went, through the tunnel to the corner from which Abby had most certainly launched her shoes originally. I punched my arm through the opening at the top of the wall and reached down until I felt the shoe, looped a finger through the laces and retrieved it. I climbed back out of the equipment, through the maze of children, slipped my feet back into my shoes and called it a day.

Next time, I'll just take her shoes off like the sign says.