The Blanket

Peyton brings a blanket to school for nap time. For the past year, she's been perfectly content with her Tinkerbell blanket. But beacuse I'm so great, I got Peyton an adorable Frozen blanket and gave it to her this past weekend. She became immediately obsessed with it and of course brought it to school on Tuesday for her nap.

As always on Tuesday, Grandma picked Peyton up for Pasta Tuesday. She came home, went to bed, woke up, ate breakfast, and I dropped her off at school at about 8:15 on Wednesday morning.

Now, I realize you are probably thinking this story is extremely boring. However, when I dropped her off on Wednesday, her cubby, which had once held the prized blanket, was completely empty. The blanket was...MISSING.

Uh oh. I thought for a second that I could pretend I didn't notice the missing item. But Peyton is way too smart for that and immediately asked her teacher where her brand new Frozen blanket was.

The teacher had a blank look on her face. Tears welled up in Peyton's eyes. She screamed, "my blanket is gone!!!"

TRAGEDY.

My immediate reaction was to line all of her classmates up single file and grill them about the blanket's whereabouts. And then I was going to wait outside her classroom all day and interview each parent as they came to pick up their child. Surely someone pretending to be a friend stole the blanket in a fit of jealously. The child likely conspired with his/her parents who knew finding such a limited edition item would be virtually impossible. It was the only logical explanation.

Luckily, I gathered myself and told Peyton we would find it. She wasn't buying my bullshit and was hysterical. I left school and speed-dialed Grandma to see if she had taken the blanket home by accident. Nope. I called Martin - maybe he had an idea. Nope.

BLANKET GONE. SUSPECT LIST STARTED.

I drove home to get Peyton an alternate blanket to use for the day, and when I arrived back at school I cornered the front desk girl to see if she had seen any blanket theives recently.

"Peyton's blanket is in the dryer. We wash them on Tuesday nights."

What should have been a relief and a sufficient explanation was not for me. I demanded  she show me the actual blanket. I needed visual evidence that the thing was indeed in the dryer, in the school, a mere 30 feet from my child. It was.

I gleefully told Peyton the crisis had been averted, that her blanket was safe and sound and would be returned to her once it was completely dry. Because she is my daughter, she was somewhat apprehensive and asked that Miss Theresea bring it to her immediately.

No doubt the blanket will be making its way home each and every night from now on. And I will be writing her name on it in big, bold letters. And perhaps installing a microchip in it as well.