Where's Austin?

About three weeks ago, CR lost his little friend Austin. You might remember the petite purple kangaroo from the week of his birthday - I had to go to iParty to pick up items for both his party and my girlfriend CM's baby shower, and he spied the magenta marsupial from afar, and instantly had to have it. Ever since Austin joined our family, CR has treated him like a baby - he hugs, kisses, rocks, feeds, and reprimands the little fellow day in and day out. Recently he took this play style to extremes.

CR, B and I were hanging out in Mantown, and B and I went upstairs to tend to something (probably had something to do with the house...that is our default energy suck these days), leaving CR free to roam about the place. He wandered upstairs to his room, to our room, back through the kitchen, and eventually resumed his position in Mantown. B and I returned downstairs to gather wee-man up to run some errands, and he was distraught - he insisted that Austin was missing, and that he couldn't find him. We looked everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Our place isn't that big, and since we have removed a number of his toys and clutter in general from our home, it would be really challenging to lose something in here. After searching and searching, we gave up, and resigned ourselves to the fact that one of us was going to have to go back to iParty to buy him another purple playmate.

Fast forward to the week before last. B was in the basement biking, and he hollered up to me to come down there. He affectionately addressed me as "J-bird," so I knew it must not be anything catastrophic (pre-child/children, B used to call me that all the time...it was sweet and cute, and the nickname has been put on the back burner for what feels like forever...it was nice to see it recycle through out of the blue). He asked me to sit on the bike...so I did with a bit of reservation. This is what we saw...

Apparently CR put Austin in a "time out" - something we occasionally do to him when he does something less than desirable...mystery solved, and a trip back to iParty saved...