More Than Meets the Eye

I took this picture of Char's bedside table last week. The main point of this pic was the water tumbler. 

Char didn't want a trendy, Stanley Tumbler. She wanted a Stanley Dupe (look-alike) tumbler from Five Below. The problem is that Stanley Tumblers are so popular that even the dupes fly off the shelves. When someone at school told her that a new shipment would be arriving that evening, Char texted if we could go tomorrow after school?

I doubted they would still be there tomorrow, and I also doubted that the Five Below website was accurate. I drove over to the mall after school while Char was in Drama Club. Here's our text conversation:

Okay! That's a dad-win, and those are harder to come by with a teenage girl. I mostly get yelled at. To keep my streak going, we sat down at the computer and searched etsy.com for the right Stanley Dupe Sticker. 

Here's Char's pick:

Yelnats is Stanley spelled backwards, and instead of a royal bear, there's a royal lizard. That's a clever reference to the book and movie Holes.

I took the picture while the sticker was still in place, and the tumbler was still in good shape. Things like this don't last forever. But that isn't why I like this picture so much. It's everything else in the picture.

In the foreground on the left is Char's first case for her first set of eyeglasses. Picking those out was quite a task, and Char is still proud of her choice. 

Char has braces, and that's her headgear that goes along with them in the middle. 

To the right of that is my old Tomy Pocket Obstacle Course that I was playing with back when I wore braces and headgear. I didn't remember that Char even had it. 

On the far right is her folding fidget square. She's grown out of her fidget phase, so it's fun to see one pop up now and again. 

Above the fidget is a plastic turtle that used to float in her bathtub. He's always dry now, but he still makes an appearance in her room once in awhile. 

To the right of the dupe is a framed postcard from our trip to Canada last summer. It's from Dartmouth, and that's where Daphne and I sat for an hour on a park bench watching our daughter unsuccessfully trying to catch a wild, but mostly tame, duck. 

Above the dupe is a cat sticker that was applied to the wall in one of Char's first attempts of decorating her room all by herself. That was years ago, and I think this is the sole surviving sticker.

Some people might look at this picture and see a silly cup on a messy nightstand. Instead, I see our daughter's past, where she is now, and hints of where she's going. I can see my past on there, too. I'm so glad I took this picture.

Things like this don't last forever.