Last night one of the parents came to me and reported that Christine wanted NO jewelry, and that Olivia was refusing to give up her new earrings.  Now when we had them pierced, I had timed it so that we were 6 weeks out from Nutcracker.  I knew her ears would be healed by now.  We had bought her white gold studs, but a week ago Steph swapped them out with some pearl studs.  I told the parent to let Olivia know that enough time had passed and that her ears were fine.  The parent returned shortly with her earrings in my notebook pocket.

After the show, when I went to Chris’ house I got out my notebook.  Something fell out and I had thought that it might be one of the earrings, but it was dark and my flashlight batteries were dim, so I couldn’t find anything.

This morning Steph asked me to produce the earrings and, sure enough, there was only one.

When we got to the office, Jerome was there and had bought an all-in-one laser printer, but he had thought it was color and it was monochrome.  So I went with Jerome down to return it with him, and go look for the earring.

I went directly to where I had been the night before, and walked up and down the sidewalk looking for just the right mud puddle.  When I was sure I had the right bearings, I looked down.  Jerome had gotten out and walked up asking if I found anything.

Sure enough, there it was, about 2 feet from where I was standing!  Stephanie was very happy.