Almost a goner

So today Piper and I were doing our evening routine of trying to get dinner going when Russ and Rhett came home with distress filling the air. Russ walked in and said from downstairs, "Well, we have a problem". He then continued an ongoing conversation with Rhett saying something along the lines of "You did a really good thing today". Those two statements don't really go hand in hand so you can understand my confusion. I asked him what was going on and he said Rhett gave away his blanket today. "What!", I said with obvious shock. A little background...Rhett has a blue blanket that he's had since he was a baby. It's one of those blankets that goes everywhere with him. The minute he touches it he reverts back to his younger years and immediately sticks his thumb in his month. So you can understand my concern when Russ said Rhett gave it away. This would not be an easy transition. Rhett proceeded to get more hysterical about the fact that he no longer hand his "blankie". Further background...That day at school they were having a pet drive and a pet "blessing". The kids were suppose to bring in a stuffed animal to be blessed (Catholic school...I'm not really sure what that's all about) and they were also supposed to bring in items to donate to an animal shelter. Rhett brought his stuffed bull, Dr. Proctor, and a few items we had around the house to give to the shelter. Apparently, in all the excitement of putting the donations in a pile on the floor, Rhett somehow got confused and added his blankie to the mix. I'm not sure if he knew what he was doing at the time or not but he apparently made it through the day without losing it. When Russ picked him up at school he asked about an incident that his teacher emailed us about earlier that day. (To add insult to injury, they had a fire drill at school today that totally freaked Rhett out. But that's another story.) With the rising tension of talking about the fire drill he remembered his blankie was no longer a part of our family. He told Russ what happened. Apparently Russ's response was much the same as mine. Russ's first thought was the blanket was long gone lining the cage of some poor pooch already. He tried to convince Rhett that he did a really good thing by letting an animal have his blanket. Rhett almost bought into it. Almost. By the time they got home Rhett had reached his breaking point and started to mourn the loss of his dear friend. Through out all of this it never occurred to Russ to just turn around, go back in the school and try to get it back. He simply didn't see that as an option. Luckily there was a women in the house. I called the school right away. The secretary was still there and begged us to come back and get the blanket. The donations hadn't left the school yet and apparently she knew what a blanket meant to a little kid. To make a short story really long, we went back as a family and retrieved the blanket. Easy peasy. It's a good thing we have moms in this world.

(On a side note...Rhett is up way past his bedtime right now watching cartoons on the couch because he's having a hard time falling asleep. He's wondering if there will be another fire drill tomorrow at school.)