Pavement candy and Betty Bear's lost sock

Yesterday we walked back from school to find an inordinate amount of pavement confectionary littering the ground.
My attention was first drawn to a solitary chunk of Yorkie chocolate which Thing 2 picked up with lightning reflexes and was about to put in her mouth.
'Noooooo!' I spoke in drawn-out slow motion.... Swiped the offending piece of floor chocolate from her childlike grasp and it fell to the floor with a thud. Of course, this evoked tears from said Thing and I had to explain kindly, but in a no nonsense way that it just isn't appropriate to eat sweets off the pavement. She looked at me, all big blue eyed and she nodded, chin wobbling at the sadness of having to leave the piece of chocolate where it lay; but I seemed to get through to her. Or so I thought.
A mere few metres along the road and we came across a lonely yellow jelly baby. This time it was Thing 1 who got the look of excitement because of what he'd found. Anyone would think they are deprived of treats and sweet stuff. Honestly they're not. In fact, they probably have more than their fair share.
Again I found myself explaining to a Thing the reasons why they couldn't eat sweets from the pavement.

Sadly, there had apparently been an explosion at Willy Wonka's factory yesterday, with the road between school and Thing Central being the worst hit. We came across treat after treat. It looked like Hansel and Gretel had left a trail for themselves to RETURN to the gingerbread cottage...
There was a piece of chewing gum, then a wrapped boiled sweet. A polo mint, followed by half a digestive, followed by a bright yellow bubble gum. Then we found a mint imperial, a jelly strawberry, a fizzy dummy sweet.
At every sweet I had to break a Thing or two's heart repeatedly by explaining that they couldn't eat it. By the time we were almost home, the pair looked ravenous and were frantically looking for a floor treat they could grab and devour before I could stop them. The walk home took forever. We got in and the Things ended up raiding the tin of biscuits; I mean, I couldn't deny them MORE treats!

Having heard that account of yesterday's walk home, you can probably imagine my delight in finding that today's walk home from school would be in the snow! Yes, you heard me correctly. In...the...snow! You know what snow means?! Any floor food would be COVERED... By SNOW! That could only mean one thing, that today's walk home would be much quicker and I would be saved the task of explaining over and over again why Things should try not to add 'floor food' to their varied diet.
I was right. The walk was much quicker. It took us twenty minutes as oppose to the day before, when it had taken fifty. Thing 2 was happy because she had painted a pink triangle (actually, it was orange, but she insisted it was pink and so to keep the peace we just nodded in agreement), Thing 1 was happy as he had been given one of the class mascots, Betty Bear, to bring home and look after for the weekend. I was happy, as in bringing out Betty Bear, Thing 1 had announced to me that he would need to sleepover at Thing grandparents this weekend as when he'd had the mascot's male counterpart, Buster Bear, he'd gone to the grandparents and therefore it would be very unfair on Betty if she didn't get to go too. A swift phone call and a Thing sleepover was arranged.
The walk back was, on the above notes, an overall pleasant experience for all. It was bitterly cold, and the snow was wet; but that wasn't going to dampen our spirits.
We laughed and joked all the way home, Betty Bear safely tucked under Thing 1's arm; each knowing we'd soon be home and could get into dry clothes, put the fire on and not have to worry about going back out into the cold.

We got in, we put the fire on. We sorted dry clothes. I made a well deserved cup of tea. I sat down on the settee.
I heard a wail of epic proportions.
I thought Thing 1 had chopped his hand off or caused himself some other serious injury. But no;

'Mum! Betty Bear has lost a sock!'

I ran through in my head where Betty had been in the house, but she was sat on the toy box by the door. The sock couldn't be anywhere but outside in the cold, wet, snow.
I momentarily mentally mapped out our entire family sock collection to see if there was a pair I could legitimately replace Betty's remaining sock with that wouldn't cause me a ridiculous amount of embarrassment upon returning Betty to school on Monday. Alas, I couldn't think of a single pair that would do; we have a large collection of socks, made up almost entirely of mismatched pairs, discoloured socks and of course mine and Things' dads socks that would be much too big for Betty. I checked eBay for a replacement pair. The sock worn by Betty was from Build-a-Bear workshop. An identical replacement pair would set me back £4.99! There is no way I would spend that on a pair of socks for a teddy bear! I don't even spend that on socks for us!
There was nothing else for it. I would have to venture out into the cold.
I braced myself and stepped out into the now blizzard conditions. I hurried along the road we'd travelled a while earlier, squinting through the whirling flakes; desperately seeking a white sock in the white snow.
I got almost halfway back to school, ended up practically on hands and knees, scrabbling in the rapidly drifting snow.
A flash of pink lace caught my eye and I blindly grabbed toward it....
Betty's lost sock! I had found it!
Yes, I was that crazy woman, standing in the snow, hand grasping sock, triumphantly punching the air. I was the one yelling 'yes!' as I did so like an Olympic gold medallist. I had done it. I had found that sock.

I returned home and cold, but triumphant. Thing 3 was asleep, Thing 2 was prancing around in her own little world and Thing 1 had completely forgotten the existence of Betty Bear, never mind that she was one sock down. Alas, I can allow myself to wallow in my sense of achievement for a little while; otherwise I would probably have a sock- induced breakdown!