Where Have all the Batteries Gone?

There are many things in our household that frequently vanish into thin air. Cell Phones. Remote Controls. Sippy Cups. Keys. Scissors. Pens. Shoes. Those are just a few. Today, I realized that we can add something else to the list: batteries. Like any faithful parents, we buy batteries and then we place them into toys, tiny screwdrivers flailing about as if we are performing a very intricate surgery. But no matter how many batteries we buy, they all seem to disappear without the courtesy of leaving a forwarding address. So, when batteries run out and we want* to replace them, there are none to be found. Hmm.

(Here the word "want" refers to the desire to replace batteries in a very select group of important toys. The rest of the time a small celebration ensues when certain things run out of batteries, never to be heard from again.)

Culprit #1: It doesn't help that almost all of the clocks in our house run on batteries. (That's 6 clocks. Not that many, maybe, but all those clocks combined have at least enough batteries to run one small musical butterfly and a Little People bulldozer.) Unfortunately, at any given time, the batteries in 2 or more clocks have died, leaving them completely stopped. For example, the clock in our bedroom has said that it is 9:45 since probably February, when I had my third child and stopped thinking about unimportant things like what time it is. Or what day it is. So, 4 months later, when I finally started caring about what time it is, and I actually took the time to replace the dead battery, I couldn't. find. any. Okay, that isn't entirely correct. I found lots of batteries, they were just all dead.

Culprit #2. I'm gonna have to blame the toys. All 8,967 of them. Now I know that we have never had batteries for all of them, but I used to be pretty good about switching them around and giving each toy an equal chance to fulfill its purpose through song or movement. My latest quest, however, (tiny screwdriver in hand) to search out, remove, and change out batteries, ended in utter failure. While I thought that our toy piano would be the lucky recipient of a 3-AAA battery transplant, I was unable to perform the operation. There were just no donors. Not the Little People race car. Not the garbage truck. Not the musical butterfly. Indeed, all hope seemed to be lost.

So, full aware of the consequences of not having a tiny piano for my 4-month-old to play with while sitting adorably in her Bumbo chair, I became desperate. Wielding my tiny screwdriver, I opened every single toy, upstairs and downstairs, hoping against hope that the 3 necessary working batteries would be found. A-ha! There were two in the non-descript yellow insect that sings about shapes. One more, only one more to go...I finally found it! (To be honest, I don't remember where I found it but the important thing is that I did, right?) The batteries were all dead, but rechargeable, so I defibrillated them in the charger and then placed them oh so lovingly in the musical piano with my skilled surgeon's hands.

Only by this time the baby was ready for her nap. And she has yet to play with that stinking piano. And I realized that I spent all morning on something that wasn't that important. And then I spent all night writing about it.

I am sure I began this thrilling story with a moral. But now that it is done, I am unsure what that moral was. Something to do with buying more batteries, perhaps? All I know is that I'm glad that when I see the clock in my bedroom I can still pretend that it is 9:45 and not the time that it really is right now.