Monkey Trouble

We have no idea where it came from.  We think in a package as a gag from Nick's mom.  The tag has been sucked to nothing so we don't even know what brand it is.  It is the monkey.

For whatever reason, Tristan fell in love with the little stuffed monkey, and it has been his buddy since he was about 6 months old.  He carries it everywhere, around the house, around the store, at church, and he will not sleep without it.  Which presents a huge problem before bed if we can't find the darn thing.

Today, Tristan and I went to Walmart to pick up a few things for Nick's trip.  You know, travel sized toiletries and such.  But I figured why not wander the store for fun?  Somewhere in the snack isle, Tristan started having a melt down.  Not a huge one, but just enough that he made a little scene.  I told him he was fine and would let him hold the next thing I grabbed off the shelf.  It was a box of hamburger helper, but it seemed to do the trick.

At checkout, I always hand Tristan my keys to hold.  It was then I noticed the monkey was missing.

Oh no.  Not before Nick leaves on a trip!  Don't do this to me!  Tristan will be an utter nightmare without that thing!

I paid for everything and immediately turned around to retrace my steps, going up and down every isle I had been in, looking under all the shelves.  Of course, muttering silently to myself how dumb Tristan was for tossing it out of the cart.

Luckily, in the baking isle, I found it.  It was sticking half out from under the shelf covered in dust and floor yuck.  I stuffed it in my pocket because I didn't want Tristan to hold it and lose it again.  Once home, I tried to put him down for a nap with his little elephant.  Of course that was a disaster, and he wouldn't stop crying until I handed him monkey (don't worry, I wiped it off).  No nap though was not a good thing.  We still had to go up to SLC for his Primary's appointment, and he was a terror the rest of the day.  Like horrible.  Like mommy had a meltdown horrible.  I'm just glad when I put him down to bed finally, monkey in hand, he made no objections and fell right to sleep.

Too bad tomorrow we have to get up at 4 AM and go to SLC again to take Nick to the airport.  Yeay.