First of all, a big thank-you to dear 43ers smartstuff (for her offer) and Ixii (for finding one on e-bay), cheers for your help with this.

The other day I received an e-mail from a local fellow who saw the lost and found ad I put up on craigslist. His 5 year old son happened to have a similar night light (although greener, shorter, and squatter) and wanted to give it to Isak after hearing how sad he was. His dad said it was fine with him, that his son wasn’t terribly attached to it and he thought it was a wonderful lesson about sharing with others.

We made arrangements to meet, and Isak brought along a little box of lego we had received doubles of to give to the boy, who hadn’t been expecting anything in return and was ecstatic. It was a great lesson all around.

Isak is thrilled with the new light and has dubbed him “Spoka Greena Gria”. If I come across a twin of the lost one I’ll see if Isak still misses it enough to have a little glowing buddy for Mr. Gria, but until then, he seems quite pleased with the current ozlike glow of generosity shining on his tabletop.

^{(Then again they’re so damn cute, maybe we’ll adopt a whole family of different coloured spokas.)}9 months ago

We lost a dear friend over the weekend: Isak’s night-light, a little softly blue glowing ghost that he’s had since he was a baby. It’s been there whenever he’s fallen asleep, gets packed for overnights, goes camping with us, and is always there to usher in good dreams and comfort in the darkness.

He was thoughtful enough to lend it to Iris to carry for the lantern festival we went to Saturday night and she managed to drop it when we weren’t looking. We doubled back and looked everywhere, but it was dark, there were thousands of people milling around with their own lights, and we knew there was little hope. I put a lost and found ad on Craigslist just in case, but again, little hope there.

I feel terrible about it, he was so sad when he realized it was really gone – I know it’s just a thing, and maybe there’s an important lesson there, but I remember what it’s like to be particularly attached to something as a kid and losing it.

I checked with Ikea, and the ones they have now are quite different, I’d love to get him the exact same one. I’ve found a woman willing to trade one for something on a swap site, so I wrote her, but she’s in South Dakota – I have yet to hear back and have no clue what to offer her in return. Fingers crossed I can find one somewhere… 9 months ago