The Saga of the Missing Key

Preface: Chris has been taking Kazakh lessons for the last month and a half. Because of our lesson schedules it worked out that once a week I would meet Chris after his Kazakh lesson to "hand off" Baby and I would then go to my English lesson.

My last week of lessons I happened to misplace my house key... I couldn't find it for days. We weren't really inconvenienced by the loss until my second lesson of the week. Chris was due to return home from running an errand and was running late. He called me and we arranged to meet at the bus stop so he could take Baby and I could run across the street to catch a bus headed in the right direction. When I went to the door to leave I realized I was locked in! (I often have Chris just lock the door after himself when he leaves so he can let himself back in. We can unlock the door from the inside, but we have to have one of our keys and since mine was missing... I was stuck!) I waited for Chris to get home and since we were then running late, he had to walk back to the main road with me to help me get a taxi.

The next day we were well aware of the one-key issue. It was our day to meet between Kazakh and English lessons and pass off Baby. Chris left and made sure to stress the importance of remembering to give him his keys when I gave him Baby. He even told me to put the keys in my jeans pocket so I would feel them and not forget to give them to him. At some point I thought it would be even better to just put the keys in the basket of our stroller, but decided against it as I wasn't sure how secure the keys would be when going over big bumps.

So, we met and passed off Baby and I walked a ways before getting on the bus. Already on the bus, halfway to my destination, I got a call from Chris. I remembered the keys were still in my pocket as I answered the phone. It would have been fine if he interrupted my lesson to get the keys, but traveling there wasn't very practical. I was able to quickly suggest that he visit our neighbors, as I was sure Anya and Stacia would be home.

I hurried home after the lesson but my total time away was about three hours. Just enough time for them to have quite the adventure. It went something like this:

About ten minutes after getting to Anya's, Baby's diaper was soaked through. They had to change her diaper and pull off her pants (also wet), and weren't exactly sure what to do next. (Since this was just a trade-off trip, the diaper bag was not carried in the stroller.) They put a pair of little girl panties (fresh from the box) with a small cloth on our 8-month old daughter. Minutes later Chris was holding Addie in the kitchen and she managed to wet herself and pretty much start spraying the kitchen too. Chris and Anya used a large dish towel with our snappy (works in place of diaper pins) and covered it with our plastic diaper cover. Anya found the smallest pair of Stacia's old tights and they put them on Addie to get her dressed and keep her little legs warm.

I think Chris was a little traumatized by the experience, but Addie didn't seem to think there was anything particularly unusual about the bulky terry-cloth diaper, or the amazingly long pair of tights. If only we could all be so easily pleased! =)



As for my key? I found it the next morning when my Russian tutor, Mira, came and I pulled out my Russian materials. Obviously, I'm not studying enough... =]