Suckers

I fell for it again.

My son's big brown eyes and his sad tale about an achin' belly.  He woke up at four this morning and checked in every 15 minutes to let us know that "Yep, still sick."

Somewhere between home made potato fries with bacon and a chat about Luke "Sky Walkers" he was healed.  There he bounced, healthy as a lanky horse: playing Hi-Li in the kitchen, making plans for our soccer tournament outside, and humming his own original diddy.

Suckaaa.

While gently celebrating his health, I hinted at taking him to school late.

Saucer eyes.  "Umm, could you please, ummm..." Quivery chin.  "Please just let me..." Sad mouth. "Think about it?"  Voice cracking.

"Yes, you think about it and I will shower up.  Let me know what you come up with."

After the shower, I found him fully dressed in his uniform, hands in pockets searching like mad for some missing thing.

"What are you looking for, Honey?"

"A piece of you, Mommy.  I'm looking for something you use a lot to bring with me to school."

Ka-boom went my heart.

I scanned my room along with him, right on track.  A perfumed business card?  No, too Murder She Wrote.  My Neutrogena lip balm?  No, too Tyra Banks.  A ponytail holder?

"Are these from your necklace, Mommy?" he asked holding two small silver beads in his hands.

"Yes, they are," I answered before wrapping my brain around their correct origin.

He then carefully placed the beads in his tiny silver magnetic angel box and put them in his pocket.  His face moved up and I could almost find a smile.

Abby in her blinged out pink slippers, Grayson in his SpongeBob winter hat, and I in my crispy blow-dried hair drove off to deliver our package to his school....three hours late.

Not until the trip home did it hit me, where I got those beads.

They were from my bathing suit.  Two years ago, we joined Andy on a business trip to Myrtle Beach.  Stupidly naive about caring for two non-swimmers near nothing but bodies of water,  I found myself up sh*t's creek.  For a week, I was trying in vain to entertain the kids for 10 hrs. a day at the beach, in a rickety hotel room, and at the pool.  Without fail, we all wound up in the hot tub by 3pm because I could no longer feel my shoulder blades and mama needed some kind of 2ft. deep refuge. While the three of us soaked in the questionable hotel hot tub water, my tankini spontaneously busted revealing a free (and fairly worthwhile - I was heavier then) peep show all of 30 seconds before Grayson yelled, "Mommy, we can see your bewbies!"

He was right.  All eyes were on my nekkid ladies.

In a panic, I bent over to cover up then decided it mandatory to collect my tankini beads from the bottom of the cess pool.  Only AFTER finding each one (!?!?) I wrapped us all in a towel of shame for the grueling schlep back to our kitchenette  We didn't come back out until the sun went down.

So, in the end, turns out both the brown eyed boy and his mother have been equally suckered.

Should I tell him about the beads or just show up to kindergarten pick-up with rubber gloves and bleach based hand sanitizer?