Dearest Eli,

You have been wronged, and for that I apologize. 

Hello, old friend!

Because I'm sure everyone who reads this blog has been so concerned with the whereabouts of my camera for the last six months, you'll be relieved to know, I found it. 

Yes, we've told everyone who walks into our home that Eli most likely threw away our camera.  It comes up because there's a super inconvenient child lock on the trashcan in our kitchen.  Yes, I have a child lock on my trashcan.  This goes against all my parenting beliefs.  I don't believe in child locks.  I only have them on the one set of cabinet doors under the kitchen sink.  I believe in saying "no."  However, once the camera disappears, it's a whole new ballgame.

In our defense, Eli has thrown away many items that have luckily been retrieved.  Many small toys, important papers, and most recently, a Red Box DVD cover have all been discarded by Eli. 

Yes, we blamed Eli for the camera's disappearance, accused him of throwing it away, and no, there's absolutely no way Eli was responsible for this one.

Today we needed a van clean out.  I'd been a little lax on keeping up with that lately because it's been so bitterly cold here, and it's just not convenient to make sure every last thing makes it out of the van.  I put the boys down for a nap and cleaned out the van (something I've done a thousand times since the disappearance; I usually keep it pretty tidy).  I had the trunk open and noticed that my "emergency baby blanket" had gotten a little dirty and needed to be washed.  I keep it in one of the side storage pockets in the trunk along with a bag of jumper cables, just in case.  As I was repositioning that bag, I was standing at just the right angle to notice a black cord in the bottom of the pocket.  I reached down in there, and sure enough... the camera.

I don't know exactly how it ended up there.  We know we went to the science museum right around that time, and it's possible that as we were folding up the stroller, one of us put it in the pocket and forgot to take it out.  I don't know.

All I do know is that I don't like my new camera, and I am sooooo happy to have my old one back.  It's pink, which makes me happy, and I certainly don't have a lot of pink in my life, and more importantly, it usually takes better pictures than the new one.

All this is to say, "Sorry, Eli.  Will you forgive us?"

PS  I had convinced myself there were only a few newborn Aaron pictures on that camera and that most of the important baby pictures were already on my computer.  Well, I was so happy to see the pictures of Aaron's first bath, several really great pictures of a tiny, tiny Aaron, and lots of pictures of the big boys loving on little Aaron.  I'm so happy to have those pictures back.  I didn't know what I was missing.