Follow your hunches.

Over the years, Arden and I have tried to discover things that will make caring for Nick easier both for us as well as easier for him.  Some ideas have worked out and others we have scrapped.  Sometimes we are brainstorming and planning for awhile and other times, the light turns on and a solution presents itself in a moment.

That is what happened on the third day of our big road trip last year.  We planned to be gone for a total of 6 weeks and already after just a few days, Arden and I were frustrated.  It was a little thing really, but sometimes, little things seem big when we can’t solve a problem.

The problem was Nick’s airplanes.  He had three of them with him on the trip.  For two days, it seemed that we were dealing with them in some capacity every few minutes.  He was either dropping them or he wanted a different one than the one he was holding.  He could only hold one in each hand, so we had one too many in my opinion.  Nick didn’t agree.  Neither of us was happy.  I couldn’t imagine fighting with him for the next six weeks while we were on the road.  There had to be a solution.

We were at the gas station that morning, filling up for the day, when I noticed a toy store across the road.  The idea popped into my head.   I could get him something to hold the planes.  That would help.  

I pretty much demanded that Arden drive me over there so I could see if I could find some container to hold the planes.  I went into the store and asked the first employee I saw.  They took me to a section with plastic boxes.  I didn’t think that would work.

Come on, there must be something in this store that will help me and make Nick happy.  I walked to the end of that aisle and towards the front of the store.  I was so discouraged.

Straight ahead of me was a display of plastic gift bags.  Right at the top was a small gift bag.  The picture on the bag was of airplanes from the movie “Planes”.  It was a perfect container and Nick would love it.  The shelf immediately to the left had a few toy planes too.

In my relief at finding a quick solution, I also purchased him two new planes.  We now had five toy planes to keep track of, but it was so much easier because they all fit into the bag that he could carry.

It has been over a year and we have taken his airplane bag with us everywhere.  I don’t know what we will do when it wears out, but I am sure we will be led to another solution.

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