Dumpster Dive Rescue

Hooray for beautiful spring weather! There is something about the sunshine and mid-50 degree weather that just makes me want to clean the car out - which is exactly what Lynlee and I did this morning.
We filled Tommy 2.0* up with gas this morning and, after checking the weather report, decided to get a car wash as well. Lynlee LOVES going through the car wash! Now that she's over her fear of being drenched while going through it** she gets excited to watch it do it's thing and get all the dirt off of our car.
When we got home we decided that we would take Windex and paper towels and clean off our windows on the inside before putting our new license plates on it. Lyn was such a big helper, as usual. :) I brought a bag outside with us to put any car garbage as well as the used paper towels in and when we were finished window washing, I asked the wee one to take it over to the dumpster and throw it away. "Sure mom!" And off she trotted. I stood watching my sweet girl [try to] skip over and stand on her tip toes to toss the trash in. As she got it up to the rim of the dumpster I noticed that she was holding her little toy Cinderella ("Cinderbella" as Lynlee calls her) in her hand and before I could tell her to stop and put the toy down, in went everything, Cinderbella and all.
Uh oh.
Instant tears as she realized what had happened.
Heartbreak as I saw her happy face fall and her knees buckle at the thought of losing her very special plastic friend.
Disgust as I quickly thought through our options and realized what very well was going to happen.
Yup, one of us was going to have to rescue Cinderbella.
From the DUMPSTER.
This toy better love us.
I walked over, wiped the tears from the cheeks of my heartbroken 4 year old, and peeked into the dumpster. Oh good - there was hardly anything in it. Thank you garbage men for doing your duty!
Well, see, I'm 5 1/2 months pregnant, so there's no way I could climb in and out of there on my own. Lynlee and me, we're a team, so I told her that if she wanted Cinderbella back then we were going to have to work together...and that she was the one who was going to have to go in to rescue her friend.
L: "You're going to put me in there?" eyeing me and the dumpster suspiciously
Me: "Yes, but just long enough to get Cinderbella, then I'll lift you back out."
L: "Okay!"
It took a lot of convincing. :p
As I'm lowering my child into the dumpster, a couple we know from our ward pulls up to the building next to us. And I know they saw us because they parked facing our direction. And waved when they got out. Of course. Because that's how perfect timing works. I made sure they also saw me pull her back out. Just because I'm making a new one doesn't mean that I'm done with this first one. Haha! And when we had completed our mission I made sure to point out that we were involved in a very serious rescue operation when they pulled up. We were told it looked like a very intense situation. :p
After a good scrub down of the three of us (I knew where that toy had been!) Lynlee and Cinderbella were happy to play together once again. As we finished getting our car Spring-ready there were a few more things I asked her to put in the dumpster for me, but this time each time she left her precious plastic pal in my care as she made an adorable attempt to skip over to the dumpster.

*My first car was a white 1983 Toyota Celica GT that I named Tommy. Since our new car is a [much newer] white Toyota, it seemed only fitting that we call this one Tommy 2.0. :)

**There was a traumatizing albeit hilarious incident with the car wash and another vehicle that we owned that involved Lynlee. Apparently there was a dent in the frame on one of the back passenger sides that we didn't know was there which left a gap between the frame and the top of the door. When we first got that car we all got buckled in and took it to SuperSonic to get a car wash and get it cleaned out. As our car got soaked with water there was a surprised scream from the backseat - the car wasn't the only thing getting soaked! Poor thing got her own little shower and was completely drenched even though we unbuckled her as fast as we could. So now every time we go to a car wash she has to ask if there's a chance that that might happen again.