That's the way the cookie crumbles

This morning started out like most other mornings. Brody woke up early. I fed him breakfast and then we waited for Barrett to wake up so I could feed him and we could go on our morning jog. Brody likes to take different things with him on our morning jog. One day he took his leaf blower and graciously blew the leaves (imaginary) off of the sidewalks for all our neighbors. Another day he took his gun and shot all the birds we saw along our way.

Today Brody opted for his camera so he could take pictures of things we saw on our walk and show Daddy later (since Daddy was at work and couldn't go on the jog with us). We'd been jogging for about 20 minutes when all of the sudden he dropped the camera out of the stroller. It bounced one time and it seemed like everything was in slow motion as I watched it come out of the bounce straight into the gutter on the side of the street! I couldn't see (or fit) down in the gutter, but looking thru the hole in the man hole cover I could see his camera laying on the concrete floor of the gutter. If only I had a way to take out the bolt on the man hole cover, lift the cover, and climb down the ladder to the bottom of the gutter...but I didn't. Brody was heart broken! He was crying so hard asking me to "PLEASE get my camera! I didn't drop it on purpose!" I felt awful for him.

When we got home, I called the city public works department. The lady there gave me the cell number for one of the guys in the field, Ernie. I called Ernie and he told me one of his guys would be there in 15 minutes! Brody was soooo excited! He even practiced saying, "Thank you! THANK you! THANK YOU!" I loaded all three kids up in the car (I was watching Jayden for Angela this morning) and we headed over to meet the city workers. I drew a few looks from the neighbors while I was sitting in front of the gutter with my car running. One guy kept coming out of his house and looking over at my car. The lady whose house I was parked in front of kept peering over her fence at me. When the city guy showed up, I got out of my car and explained to her what was going on. She was relieved to find out that the city employees weren't there to dig up her yard! They city workers, on the other hand, couldn't keep the smirks off their faces as they got to work. Brody watched as they used their special tool to remove the man hole cover. Then one guy climbed down in the hole and handed the camera back up to the other guy who handed it over to Brody. Brody just said, "thank you" under his breath.

What did I do? If you know me, you know that I asked the city employee if he'd mind me taking his picture! He stood by Brody (who wouldn't look at me) and let me take a picture. You'll notice the 2nd employee crawling out of the man hole while I was taking the picture.

So what's the lesson here? Don't drop things out of the stroller! Even though you may only drop it one time on your entire walk...that one time may be the death of your toy. "And that's the way the cookie crumbles."