Clover lost her pale pink Crocs on the last day of the kindergarten museum. She's been running around in the sand pit and she and her classmates decimated the giant sand volcano that they made erupt as an interactive exhibit. When she realized the Crocs were lost, we looked in the sand pit and dug around the edges, but couldn't find anything. She went home barefoot and Kevin returned to the school over the weekend to dig up with pit, but the Crocs were forever gone. This is a school wear kids often take off their shoes before entering a classroom, which made the likely explanation that another kids inadvertently took them.
We gave up and bought a new pain, even though I was kind of annoyed. That was the end of the story, until two years later. Once again, it was the annual kindergarten museum time, and Chloe - who'd visited the museum with her second grade class, said, "The Crocs are back!" At some point, the Crocs were found buried under the volcano site. They had been so deep that roots had grown through them.
The Crocs have become a permanent part of the museum collection, brought out each year for the class event. The big roots are gone, likely lost in storage, but the dirt and sand remain. Chloe's now in fourth grade, and she has a big sense of pride that something of hers was forever left in kindergarten, but put on display each year. This must be similar to how museum benefactors feel when they see their name above wing.
Honestly, despite surviving some harsh conditions, the Crocs can easily be cleaned off and pick up where they left off, ready to be worn for a few more years. They are that tough.
