My mom and I picked out Baby at Walmart on Black Friday. She was ten dollars. There was this whole display in the center of the aisles, in between TVs and microwaves and blue rays and whatever else stuff people buy on Black Friday. Baby was somewhere in the stack of Cabbage Patch Dolls. I don’t remember what her particular style was. She’s not a Cabbage Patch Kid, but a Cabbage Patch Baby. And she only has a small tuft of brown hair peeking out from what is like a hat on sleeper pajamas. And the only part of her that is plastic is her actual face. Her body is soft. So that makes her washable. And she has had many “baths” in the washing machine. I don’t make her go through the dryer, though. She dries pretty good on her own.
We searched for a while through the stack that Black Friday. It was the Black Friday when Sadie was one. Sadie’s birthday is two weeks before Thanksgiving. We didn’t get to go to Kentucky for Thanksgiving the year she was born, because she had only been alive for two weeks and I was afraid we’d break her. That was only the second Thanksgiving in my life that I wasn’t at my parents’ house. The first time I wasn’t there was in 2005. I lead mission trip to Long Beach after Hurricane Katrina, and we had Thanksgiving with our mission team. But I also kind of cheated and we had Thanksgiving in Kentucky early, before I left for the Coast. We got to go to Thanksgiving in Kentucky when Sadie was one.
Anyway, we searched through that stack looking for the perfect doll for Sadie. It was going to be one of her Christmas gifts from Mom and Dad. We wanted to find a doll that looked like her, with brown hair and blue eyes. We found one, too. But I didn’t like her pajamas. I don’t remember why, exactly. Then we found Baby. Baby had brown hair, like Sadie, but her eyes are brown. Sadie’s are blue. But, Baby had cute pink pajamas. Also, I think we liked the name on her Cabbage Patch Baby Birth Certificate, but I don’t remember now what it was. Sadie has only ever called her “Baby.” Baby is her favorite toy to snuggle while sleeping.
Sadie carried Baby everywhere for a while. Like, we didn’t leave home without Baby. Out and about, people would try to make conversation with Sadie. They’d say some variation of: “Hello. I like your baby. What’s her name?” At which point Said would look at them like they were crazy and say: “Baby.” And then the person would either be confused or graciously say: “Well, that’s a good name. And easy to remember.”
For a while, Baby always went on our Walmart trips, even though I said we should leave her in the car. My reasons were that she might get lost or the Walmart people might think we stole her. (I don’t think we kept her receipt.) But, keeping up with Baby was actually better than Sadie crying, so she went in a lot. Baby also went on over night trips and on vacations. Any time we went in the car, really. She went to church with us, too.
Here's Baby in her Halloween costume with all the candy she collected at Trunk or Treat at church. Luckily, witches' hats made for dogs are also Baby-size.
Sadie and Baby at the end of Halloween night.
Sometimes Baby rode from the house to the car in her walker-stroller, but Sadie is actually too tall to push that stroller now. For a while, Sadie carried Baby in a play car seat. Then she switched to the new doll stroller, the one with black and bright pink polka dots. That’s the one Baby was riding in when we went to church on Easter last year.
Easter is kind of a crazy day when your parents are leading the stuff happening at church. And that’s what Sadie’s dad and I do. He’s the preacher and I get to plan worship and sing in the band. Easter is only the biggest day at church when you want everything to be perfect. There are people who come to church on Easter that never come on any other day. We want the music to sound good, the greeters to be welcoming, and people to be genuinely happy to be alive! Last year on Easter we had a big Easter Egg hunt outside before our worship service started and we had a biscuit bar, which was awesome. Who doesn’t want to eat breakfast when the buffet is biscuits, gravy, bacon, jelly, chocolate gravy, butter, syrup, more gravy, and honey? There was orange juice and coffee and people everywhere. We sat on the floor in the lobby eating biscuits. It was non-stop crazy busy and exciting and people everywhere from about 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM. That’s when we gathered up all our stuff to go get in our car to go home.
Also, when you are leading stuff at church and your church doesn’t meet at a church building, but rather in a rented auditorium, you are the one who gets to be in charge of all the things church people left in the auditorium and forgot to take home. But, you also get to take home the extra biscuits. So, when we headed out to our car at 12:30 PM on Easter Sunday, I was dragging along 3 kids, a camera bag, my friend Hannah, a baking sheet that someone forgot, our Crock Pot with left over gravy, a Ziploc bag filled with biscuits, and Baby in her stroller with the black and bright pink polka dots.
I should also say that on this particular Easter our family, for the first time ever, had matching clothes. I picked them out from the Family Mix and Match Session on the Gymboree website. Well, not my clothes or Ben’s, but all the kids clothes. Sadie had a beautiful pink striped dress - very girlie. Lizzie had a pink seersucker dress with three rosettes on the top. Joe had pink button down with navy seersucker shorts and a navy seersucker clip-on tie that we found in the dollar aisle at Target. It was three dollars, though, which I guess is still a bargain.
Somewhere in the chaos of Easter Egg hunting, Sadie’s dress had gotten stepped on, by her or someone else, we’re not really sure. The seam connecting the skirt to the bodice was pulled out. It looked repairable, but I was still a little sad about it. I remember that because I was really hoping my friend, Hannah, would take a family picture for us, since for the first time ever we were wearing matching Easter clothes. The rip in Sadie’s dress is right in the center of the picture.
I also remember that as I was asking her to take the picture and at the same time telling my family to go stand on the wooden sidewalk next to the Live Oak tree, that I put down the forgotten baking tray and the Ziploc bag full of biscuits and the Crock Pot with left over gravy. I put in on the curb, right in front of my car. And I parked Baby and her stroller right next to it.
We tried to get a good picture, but that is always a task when three of the people posing are under the age of six. Almost always, at least one person really doesn’t want to be in the picture. And nobody will look at the camera at the same time. But, we tried hard and I was happy with trying. Then, I thanked my friend, Hannah, and we buckled all the kids into their carseats. We drove home happy.
So after Easter, it is our family’s tradition to get out of town for a few days. Last Easter was no exception. We had our pop-up camper packed and ready to go to Grayton Beach State Park in Florida (near Destin.) We were rushing around the house getting all the last minute stuff, when I realized we didn’t have any pillows. I ran around to everybody’s room and gathered up pillows. At some point, in the gathering of pillows, I realized something else was missing. Or should I say, someone was missing. Baby. And all at once I wanted both to cry and to throw up. I was pretty sure that I had not seen Baby since we’d gotten home from church.
I did what every panicking mom does. I walked calmly out to the car where all the kids were getting buckled into their car seats and I said, “Sadie, is Baby in your seat with you? I didn’t see her on the bed.” Sadie, not yet upset, said that no, Baby was not in the seat and would you go get her Mommy? At which point I abandoned calm and told Ben, outside of the car so no kids would abandon calm, I can’t find Baby and I think she got left in the parking lot at church and I am going to cry.
Ben is a super dad. He said “Don’t cry. We’ll go to the security guard. They will have Baby.” I’m a worse case scenario kind of person, so the fact that Baby might have been rescued had not yet crossed my mind. Then, he explained to Sadie that Baby was still at church and we would need to stop and pick her up from the security guard.
I tried really hard not to cry the whole way to the church or look otherwise worried out of my mind. I remember taking lot’s of deep breaths and staring at the floor board. I’m not sure if Sadie really grasped how grave this situation was. But on a day when we celebrated that the grave was defeated, Grace was yet again on our side. Grace in the form of a security guard.
I’m not sure if Sadie really grasped how grave this situation was. But on a day when we celebrated that the grave was defeated, Grace was yet again on our side. Grace in the form of a security guard.
Our church, you see, meets in a rented auditorium, like I said earlier. This auditorium is on a college campus, so it’s not really ours. A security guard unlocks the doors in the morning and locks them back up when we leave. Luckily, he also rides through the parking lot on his golf cart once the hundred plus cars are gone and on that day he picked up some items that were forgotten: a baking sheet, a Crock Pot of leftover gravy, a Ziploc bag of biscuits, and a stroller with black and bright pink polka dots, with Baby strapped in the seat.
We stayed in the car while Ben walked to the security guard’s office. I watched him try to open the door, but it was locked. Then I watched Ben pull out his cell phone and call the number posted on the door. Then I saw him talking and waiting. He came over to the car.
“I’m not really sure if the security guard understands me, but he is on his way back here. The security guard speaks with an accent, so I’m very sure I didn’t understand him. I think he has her.” I would have to wait in agony a little longer. Meanwhile, I’m staying calm, telling the kids that we have to keep waiting but we think Baby is inside.
After the security guard got there, Ben was gone for what felt like 2 hours and 38 minutes. It wasn’t that long. Apparently, Ben and the security guard were able to understand each other’s accents when cell phones were not involved, and Ben learned the security guard currently on duty had just started his shift. The morning security guard had found our forgotten items in parking lot. Also, “Crock Pot” is an American thing, and this security guard with the accent who had just started his shift didn’t know what a “Crock Pot” was or that he should look for it in the refrigerator where the morning security guard had placed it. It had leftover gravy in it after all. And also, another thing is that retrieving lost and found items on a college campus is like filling out a police report with the real police and Ben had to show and ID and sign away his life to get Baby back.
It’s been a while since I felt the joy that I felt when I saw Ben walking back to our car carrying Baby in her stroller. People talk about relief washing over them. Relief washed over me. I was so thankful Baby wasn’t lost and that I wasn’t the Worst Mom Ever for losing her. Sadie was happy, too, but I think I was happier. Baby is the most precious ten dollar Black Friday deal my mom and I have ever found.
