I haven’t had a decent, proper pair of slippers for a long time. So, a couple of weeks ago I treated myself while out shopping, especially thinking of the cooler days ahead, night feeds with a newborn and also just the day to day mundane of being able to nip outside with the rubbish without having to change my shoes (or, in reality, without getting my socks wet).
I got them home and enjoyed having snugly, warm and comfortable slippers to wear around the house.
For all of about 3 days… then they mysteriously disappeared.
This isn’t the first time things in our house things have vanished into the ether. In the past, there’s a certain someone who has been behind taking things that aren’t hers, moving them or hiding them. Not maliciously of course, just because she sees something and wants to play with it or she’s playing a game and gets a bit carried away in her imagination and role play.
There was a phase when Ella was around 3 when anything lost could either be found in the kitchen bin or lying on the back step after being posted out through the cat flap.
After initially realising my slippers (and also one of Ella’s pair of trainers) were missing, Ian and I spent ages looking everywhere obvious we could think of – toy boxes, under the beds, behind furniture and in cupboards. We then spent even longer looking in less obvious places – the car, basement, garden, on top of high cupboards – no slippers or shoe to be found anywhere.
We tried asking Ella if she knew where the lost footwear was – ‘I don’t know’ came the answer followed by her looking under pieces of paper, under the cat and down her own top… ‘where is it mummy? Where’s it gone??’ – where indeed Ella, where have they gone???
Then after about a week of sporadically carrying on the slipper/trainer hunt, I began to wonder if I was being too hasty blaming Ella for the missing items. We had cleared a few bags of clothes to charity and rubbish to the tip in a pre-baby clear out… could we have accidentally thrown them out?
Being heavily pregnant I am also becoming increasingly forgetful (recent oopsies include missing appointments and being text half way through Lucy’s friends party to ask if she was still coming…) had I put the slippers somewhere or been organised enough to put them in my hospital bag (no, I hadn’t). By this point I’d given up hope of ever seeing or wearing the slippers again.
Until one evening this week.
Ella was at rainbows and Lucy was playing in their room. I went up to check she was ok (see how much mess she was making) and there neatly lined up on the floor were both my slippers and Ella’s shoe!
Lucy had found them in a bag – a bag that had been in the hallway that I’ve moved about over the last couple of weeks with the intention of storing it away. It’s literally probably the only place in the house that hadn’t been searched.
Mystery solved. Feeling a little better about my failing brain and I’m almost 100% certain Ella did do the hiding. And I’ve got warm feet again!
Amy Dunn
Our first baby, Ella Mary, was born at the end of November 2010. We were shocked to find out soon after her birth that she has Down's Syndrome. I was determined from the start that Down's Syndrome will never define Ella or what she is able to do. We will provide for her everything she needs to become the child and the person she deserves to be. There will be hard times ahead.... there are already many hard times behind us. But I already know that the good times will always outweigh the hard times. She has taught me so much in such a short time and seeing life from a new perspective is a privilege that not many of us get the chance to experience.
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