The Case of the Naughty Flip Flop

One day a mommy & her kids decided that for fun they would go visit a fun park with Grandma & the cousins and have a picnic. It was a beautiful fall day in Arizona, so mommy and the kids dressed in their shorts and flip flops, packed up, piled into the car and headed out. Everything was going great (other than mommy forgetting the yummy PB&J sandwiches) and everyone was having fun feeding the ducks their bread when.....

a certain little someone decided it would be MUCH more fun to feed the ducks without any flip-flops on. When the mommy tried to get this certain child to put his shoes back on, the trouble began. During an exuberant kicking action performed to stop the mother's attempt to put the flip flop in question back on, the shoe went flying.

Flying as in sailing into the duck pond flying. Flying as in far away from the mommy's reach flying. At first, the mommy thought she would teach the little child a lesson by immediately buckling him into the double stroller.

~She apparently thought wrong.

Despite the fact that is was perfect timing to stop and show the little one the consequence for chucking shoes into a dirty pond....what the mommy should have done, was dive after that darn flip flop the moment it hit the water. Because within moments of the shoe landing in the water, it took off and quickly became unreachable.

Once the mommy was done teaching the little one about consequences, she realized that the flip flop had already begun floating away. One attempt was made my mommy to "wade" out into the pond with pants rolled, but it was a total failure. Another attempt was made to reach the flip flop with a stick= another failure.

By this time the flip flop had now floated to the dead center of the pond AND was not moving. Things were looking pretty bleak and the little boy was quite distressed about continuing to sit in the stroller........

luckily enters a "hero" or two into this story. After talking with another person at the park and several phone calls later, two "park rangers" arrived to take on the challenge of dragging a little flip-flop out of the duck pond. At this point, the children became delighted to see what kind of ideas the rangers had for the fishing adventure.

Some of those fabulous ideas included:

making waves in the water,

trying to reach with a long extension pole,

the "wait and see,"

and finally one of the brave young "hero's" ventured out in the water up to his abdomen and finally fished out the beloved flip-flop with a pole :)

My how the little children were thrilled to see a grown man, wading out into murky water to collect the precious possession. They were even happier when they saw him walking around drenched in water.

At last the little boy had his shoe and could once again get out of the stroller and first eat some yummy fruit, chips, and rice krispie treat, before playing at the playground on a swing!

The End

(can you guess who the flip-flop in the story belonged to.....good thing he is sooo cute)

Kater-Bug

and a very hot and sweaty little guy

~who by the way NEVER got out of the stroller and was quite the little trouper about that one