You'll see this coming.

We are experiencing a minor crisis here at the moment.

Yesterday, as I was sitting down to blog, Arielle came up and wanted to sit in my lap. This is not an uncommon request for my two little ones to make. Frequently I wind up typing with my neck craned around some small person's head, unable to see the keyboard or my hands as my arms stretch around either side of that same small person's body.

So, there we were, Arielle leaning back against me, sucking on the first two fingers of her left hand, happy to be held by Mommy and vaguely interested in watching what Mommy was doing on the computer. It wasn't long, though, before her interest began to wane and she became interested in something else - specifically my wedding ring.

Arielle has had a thing about my rings ever since I made the mistake of buying Pat the Bunny when she was much younger. (I bought it online, thinking it was about a bunny named Pat. I was unpleasantly surprised to realize it was a feel-and-do kind of book. Since she was a little too young for that kind of book right then it wasn't long before it was pretty much destroyed.) One of the things the children in the book do is to try on their mother's wedding ring. Ever since then, Arielle has been obsessed with wearing my ring.

She begged to look at my rings and I told her she could, with the familiar caveat, "But, you have to stand by me, where I can see you and the ring, OK sweetie?"

Now Gabrielle has reached an stage lately, where she is much more aggressive about making sure she gets the attention she wants. In other words, she's taken to behaving badly and making huge messes whenever she thinks I'm not looking at her enough.

I'd given Arielle a handful of peanuts and raisins earlier and evidently hadn't put the peanuts back, because as her older sister was looking at the ring, Gabrielle walked into the living room with the half-full jar of peanuts and calmly dumped them all over the carpet.

Much consternation followed. I jumped up with a cry, Arielle decided she needed to reprimand Gabrielle, I reminded Arielle that it was my job to deal with Gabrielle, then reprimanded Gabrielle myself. I told Arielle to get the now empty jar and throw it in the garbage for me. I got out the vacuum and started to hoover up the mess. Gabrielle cried, because the vacuum scares her.

It was chaos.

When it finally all settled down I noticed Arielle standing by the entertainment center. Her shoulders were hunched together, her face tilted toward the ground. She was sucking on her fingers.

"What's wrong?" I asked, immediately suspicious. This body language was not a good sign. It bespoke guilty feelings and fear of punishment.

She was very brave, though, and answered me immediately. "Mommy, the ring is gone."

I'd so thoroughly forgotten about the ring that it took me a moment to remember. Then panic hit me. My ring!

It's still missing. We've torn the house apart and there are only two places left to look. The garbage and the vacuum bag.

Yuck.

I'm still gearing myself up to tear into those. Today's blogging entry is just a way of procrastinating. I do want my ring back, though, so if you pray, send one up for me to find my ring, OK? And to live through the ripened dirty diapers and flying dust.

Thanks!