Mitten Widow

The woes of losing mittens.

I'm kind of hooked on this series called Homeland. There's this soldier who is taken prisoner in Iraq and is missing for 8 years. When he is saved and returned home, his wife has hooked up with his best friend (BURN!). There is tension between the husband and wife for some time as he suspects the affair. Finally, there is a blow-out and she pleads to him, "I waited for SIX YEARS! Six years after they said you were dead. I'm sorry. I messed up. I didn't wait long enough."

I didn't wait long enough.

These are the words that came to mind on Friday when I opened Cole's backpack to find his long lost silver mitten.

Weeks ago (at least it seemed like weeks), he'd lost it at school. He said Tyler threw it. How hard could it be to find a thrown mitten? So I sent a note in his backpack the next day asking Can you please remind Cole to look for his silver mitten? I sent the lone pair to school for reference. It was returned to me without its mate. I reminded Cole to look in the lost-and-found. He said Tyler went with Sophia and they didn't find it. I suggested he go, but he kept coming home without the mitten.

So I went to Walmart and bought some blue mittens for $6.
Cole loved them. He took them to school and they got really muddy and then one got lost, less than a week after I bought them. Luckily, that blue mitten did return back to us. I recalled that the silver mitten had no tags on it, so it wasn't labelled. I surrendered to never seeing the silver mitten again.

I put it on the table in the dining room intending that we'd do a craft with it - perhaps make a puppet. Glue googly eyes on it or stuff it with cotton balls or something.  Then in a rare cleaning frenzy, I stuffed it into the craft drawer. The one that Amelia empties regularly onto the dining room floor.

And then I vaguely remembered picking it up and examining it with dismay one day. Then did I throw it into the recycling bin? In my mind's eye I remember walking over to the blue bin and contemplating the likelihood that I'd ever find its mate. I remember scolding myself for hanging onto things that seem minimally useful in hopes that craft-projects would be borne of them in the future. The result was heaps of clutter that drove my husband crazy. Did I throw it out? Why would I think a mitten was recyclable?

This morning, I opened the front closet door. On the floor was a silver mitten. I must have tossed it there when I found it in Cole's bag. And because old habits die yard, when I rummaged around some more, I found another silver mitten that had been tossed there when I'd realized that I'd never get around to making a puppet with googly eyes.