I love you, Filter.

That right there is why anyone who owns a nice camera lens (or even a sort-of nice camera lens) should own a protective filter for that lens. Today I was involved in a small battle between myself, my eight month old, my two year old, an unbalanced stroller, a paper plate owl mask and my camera. The camera lost (why couldn't it have been the silly paper plate?!) At the moment of camera to ground impact I couldn't even bring myself to look. I quietly tucked it into the bag (yes, where it should have already been) and tried not to think about the terrible crunching noise I had heard. We were in the middle of a field trip at the Outer Banks Wildlife Rescue Center with our Classical Conversations group. When one of the other moms said, "at least it wasn't the baby!" all I could think was, "oh, but it was my baby!" Does that sound wrong? Alright, my other baby. My not as special but still very precious not to mention very expensive, non-living baby.
Once I had worked up the courage, I went to remove my lens cap...and it was jammed...and there were tiny shards of glass around the edges...and the world was spinning like mad...and I nearly threw up all over the animal hospital floor. (I would have blamed it on the "cute" Opossum the nice volunteer was cuddling in her arms. Um, gross.) Later, while the kids were feeding the ducks and I had a moment to cry behind a tree, I pulled the camera out again and realized the glass could just be the filter. Oh please, oh please I prayed...and it was! It was! It was just the filter! Angels were singing! I wanted to dance a jig right there with the kids and the ducks! Or take a picture of them! Because I still could! So I did!