losing my keys ... or my mind?

Monday morning I woke up, got dressed, fed Big A breakfast, and then got ready to head out the door to take him to school. Small problem ... I couldn't find my car keys -- ANYWHERE.

Usually when things go missing, we have a set group of spots to check where Aidan has taken the stolen booty (i.e. underneath the hood of his toy Jeep, inside the Cuisinart wine cooler, in a side pocket of his backpack, and so on). So I didn't panic ... yet; however, after checking all the usual spots, and then some, I had to concede that this might be a little bit more of a difficult hunt than I'd originally thought.

Thankfully my mom was still home and was able to drive Aidan in to school for me. So I stayed behind and continued the search ... ALL DAY.

In the end, I started researching how to order a new remote key for my car (and found several cute new Hondas I'd love to have, BTW!). It started to sink in that maybe my keys had found their way into the trash or something and were long gone. After tearing up the house for two days, it didn't look at all promising.

Yesterday I borrowed Ty's spare key to my car for a quick trip to the grocery store. After filling up the basket with overpriced produce, pudding cups and Lean Cuisine frozen entrees, I began to load up the car. As I was putting Aidan in his car seat, I casually reached down for my keys (yes, THOSE keys), which were sitting on the car seat between Aidan's booster and the door. It wasn't until I went to turn the key in the ignition that I realized it wasn't Ty's single, ring-less key that I was using, but rather an entire set of keys on a keyring.

Holy crap. They were in the backseat, next to Aidan's carseat, the whole flippin' time, My routine is always to set them down on the seat before I unhook him from his safety-harness, and then pick them back up before closing the car door. This time, I'd forgotten.

Time to change my routine.