For weeks, he’d been saying it: “Mikołaj is going to bring me a police car!” And since Mikołaj knew of the Boy’s fondness for Cars, he brought not just any police car, but the sheriff from the film.

Then, the day after Christmas, he lost it. The Boy is not one to lose things: he has a fantastic memory of where he left this or that, so K and I figured the obvious: it fell out of his pocket at some point when he was in the backyard helping me with the leaves. So the search began. We looked through leaf piles, walked about in the backyard, checked in the house just in case — no luck.

Today, while out, L and K looked again. And much to everyone’s delight, L found the sheriff, then reenacted the discovery for the camera.

I’m not sure who was more excited: E, because his dear sheriff was back, or L, because she found it.