Things keep bringing me back to the beginning of Cricket's placement with us. I'm packing for a camping trip for B, Dinosaur, and Rhinoceros, very much like the one we took just days before Cricket arrived. The weather is getting warmer again and I'm pulling out those same clothes we wore in September to see if they fit.
When I met Cricket, one of her few belongings was a toothbrush that played music. We had a bit of lag time as paperwork was settled where I picked her up, and in the meantime, she was buzzing with overtired energy. Making phone calls on an unplugged phone. Drawing in a notebook and calling out any numbers she knew. And she needed to brush her teeth and show me how she did it! How could I say no, even though it was 3 pm? And of course, in our early weeks of possessiveness over what Cricket claimed as hers (really everything she laid her eyes on, but especially anything from her mom or that first arrived with her), the toothbrush caused many a fight.
While I haven't thrown out that toothbrush, we did replace it with a newer one as one toothbrush shouldn't last seven months. But I couldn't find the new one tonight and dug out the old musical toothbrush. "It's my toothbrush from the day that I met you!" I think she was repeating back something I'd said to her about the toothbrush, but still, wow, those moments slay me from such a little girl.
Of course, when she set down her toothbrush, Rhinoceros swooped in to take a look, which is generally a bad idea.
"THAT'S MY TOOTHBRUSH FROM I MET MOMMY DAY! DON'T TOUCH IT!!"
I pack up the clothes I received when she arrived, the ones mostly too small or too big. I pile the toys in a laundry basket, carefully separating her play-doh accessories, her duplo blocks, etc. from the other kids'. I organize the paperwork that has to go back to the caseworker.
And I pack up her musical toothbrush from I Met Mommy Day.
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