a new experience

While we were on vacation in Mexico, Toby lost his wallet. We had an annoying 3-bus trip back from a park to our hotel, and we think it was left on the second bus while he was distracted playing with our new camera. He had about $20 plus about $4 worth of pesos in it, and it had been made for him by a friend of ours. He tends to carry it in his hand instead of putting it in a pocket, and so he often puts it down.

We went together and asked the person at the tour desk to call the bus company, and gave whatever information we could remember. He held out hope for a couple of days that it would turn up. As the wallet's real loss dawned on him, Toby told me how much money he thought he'd had in it, and "so that's how much you should give me." I responded that when I have lost money, no one gave it back to me. He understood and got very upset for about an hour. We offered sympathy and when he was feeling better, we told stories of awful losses we have experienced (all our belongings packed into a car that got stolen, for example).

He handled it much better than I would have expected. Today he said, "Next time I won't bring my wallet to another country. I'll only bring it if I know I'm going to want to buy something." So he's taking in the experience and processing some learning from it. Amazingly, there was no whining or asking for things to be bought for him. It really seemed like after the initial reality sank in, he resigned himself to the situation and kept moving forward.