Needle in a haystack...

AKA lost treasure!

Do ya see it?  Can you find the pearl in this picture?

One of the hardest lessons as a MOM is when your child looses, breaks, or something tragic happens to a prized possession.

Yesterday was going to be one of those days for me.  The problem, I refused to go through it.  I couldn't stand the look in my sweet Big Girls eyes when I told her that her treasured pearl seemed to be lost.

Confused?  Ok backing up.  When we moved last year, one of the only fun things to the girls about the empty house was they went on a treasure hunt.  And oh the treasures they found!   (can you say old paper clip, something resembling a dust bunny, a wrinkled flower, a pom pom, and oh how the list goes on.)
And we kept almost all of them.  Among them was the rarest find.  A pink/white pearl. 
Was it real?

In her little eyes, oh yes!  But what we really had was a cheap small bead for making kids necklaces or something like that.  Though I doubt it was one of ours, I think it had been there from previous owners.

Either way this became her most prized possession. Chipped "paint" and all.

Now yesterday was share day at school and she was to share something special to her and tell why.  She chose to bring her memory box which was filled with treasures from WI.  And among them was the pearl.

Said day went really well, that is until she was outside waiting for me.  On the blacktop.  The black top that wasn't so black.  The black top that was in fact sprinkled with embedded little white stones.

I pull up ready to get my sweet Alia in the car, who then informs me that she can't get in the car.  "Why not honey?!" the pearl rolled under my car.  Mind you there are another row of cars behind me waiting to drive by.  So I pull over and proceed to get out of the car after they passed to look for this tiny treasure.

When I say tiny, it's an understatement.  Have you ever tried to look for something white on blacktop that isn't so black?  Oh and then there is this little part about a slight downgrade...that ends in a drain hole!

So here I am, grown woman, college degree, mommy, crawling around on my hands and knees on the blacktop with my nose almost literally to the ground looking for this little ball.

One of Alia's friends mom pulls up, and another person whom I don't know...both ask me, "so what we looking for".  When I reply "fake pearl" they kind of look at me as if I lost my mind.  Maybe I have, but darn it I don't want to see the loss on her face when I tell her it is gone.  One of the only pieces of her old home, her old state, is forever lost.

I will myself to crawl around for a few minutes longer.  And it pays off!!!!  There it is, I have no idea how I saw it, but I did.  That is the little lost pearl!

 

He returns safely to his ecstatic owner and is now nestled safe in a little "remembery box" once again.

Did you find the pearl in the above picture?  Its right there, can't you see it?  it's in plain sight!  :)