Finders keepers

The big drama yesterday was that Grant didn't know where his library book was. You see every two weeks his kindergarten class gets to go to the school library and pick out a book to bring home. The books are due back in two weeks and if the kids haven't returned their last book they cannot check out a new one. Somewhere along the line his teacher or the librarian told the kids to make sure to take care of their books and that keeping them in a special place in their bedrooms was a good idea. I only saw a fleeting glimpse of his last book, the missing one, as Grant took it directly to his room when we arrived home from school.

I know that Monday is his library day, so yesterday I asked if he went to the library. "Yep, but I couldn't pick out a new book because I didn't return my book. Even if I like it lots I have to return it." So instead of picking out a new library book Grant "looked at the dictionary". Okay, I have no idea if that's what he really did or not but that's the story I got.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that we (and I do mean we) hadn't returned his library book, but in the rush to get ready for our Thanksgiving trip it just didn't rank very high on my to do list. Yesterday the panic set in... after a quick search of Grant's room first by him and then by me the book was still MIA. I realized that I didn't have any idea what this book looked like or what it's title was. All I remembered about it from my quick glimpse was that it was bigger than a travel Spanish-English dictionary and much smaller than an encyclopedia. Grant couldn't remember it's size, title, story or its where abouts. We were in a pinch.

Time for homework and dinner rolled around and the book still had not appeared of its own free will. When Glayde got home, I took a few minutes to thoroughly ransack Grant's room making sure that the book wasn't tucked away somewhere in there. It wasn't on the bookshelves hiding among other books. It hadn't fallen behind the bed or slid under the dresser. It wasn't jammed in the toy box or the closet. It wasn't in any of the reasonable or totally unreasonable but possible hiding spots that I searched.

I went off to volleyball and let Glayde handle the bedtime routines, but the thought that missing book still nagged at me. That and Grant's glib comment that "Mom, we had better just pay for a new one!" I returned home hot, sweaty and full of adrenaline that fuelled the continued search. I checked under the couch and the coffee table. I looked through all the books on the shelves and still no luck. As we were heading upstairs for bed, one last place came to mind.... under the stairs. There's this odd little niche under our stairs that the boys like to play in. I had noticed recently that they were stashing things in there. I figured it was a long shot but I had better check there too. And there the missing book was tucked away inside a shoe box. I'm not sure that Grant ever read the story but the book went safely back to school this morning.

Obviously we need to find a more specific safe place to keep our library books. Suggestions welcome.