Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Hard to replace...

When Carter was born, my late grandparents gave him a little blue dog with a heart on it's chest around Valentine's day, which was the first time they had met him. That dog had fast become the favorite "lovey" of his that we would be forever held hostage for if it was misplaced for a moment. This dog now has frayed ears, half of the red heart has been loved off, the nose is crooked and a little torn. I can still here the 'click click click' sound Carter would make when he tapped the dog's nose to his pacifier to soothe himself. The Paci was gone at 1 yr, but the old dog is still around and a fixture cuddled up next to him each night.

Yes, I had to just sneak upstairs and take this picture under the cover of darkness...


Since babies don't really care about cute little names one might give their stuffed animals, we simply referred to it as, Blue Dog. It's pretty comical now to think back that long ago (7.5 yrs) and wonder if we just simply had not gotten much sleep those days and could care less about naming rights, or if we are really just that boring! I like to think of us as creative people, so why didn't we come up with a creative name for said dog-in-the-color-of-blue? I don't know if we'll ever have the answer to that question, but it falls into the category of Things That Make You Go Hmmmm... Since "Blue" (we then shortened from Blue Dog to just Blue because we're lazy like that), there has been a pattern of the lack of naming rights for all of the stuffed animals in this house. Frankly, they are what they are, and that's it.

For instance, we have Elephant, Red Teddy, Birthday Teddy, Sheep, Bunny, Pink Bear, Boston Bear...you get the picture. None of these creatures have names! The list goes on and on, but I'm sure any parent reading this can relate to the never-ending pile of dust collectors (aka stuffed animals) your children have. How do you get rid of them? Each one seems to have meaning, not necessarily as much meaning as their main "lovey" has, but still. I have over 7 years of collecting already, and we've already begun with Olivia. I take that back, we have not begun anything - it's everyone else that contributes to the pile. Us parents are not crazy enough to buy our kids stuffed animals because we know they will keep multiplying from the number of family and friends that can't resist the urge to buy them. I'm digressing again...

Now on to Olivia's stuffed animals. She too has a "lovey" that is special and is the bane of our existence if it is misplaced for a mere moment out of sight. It was a gift from a family friend when she was born, and it quickly became The One. It's one of those soft cuddly combination blanket and animal head characters that I think every newborn is entitled to own. Hers is very sweet, it was a fluffy pink teddy bear blanket head, silk trimming and an ever-so-slight jingle sound in the head from a rattle inside. Notice I used the word was when referring to it's fluffy pinkness. Let's just say it hardly resembles any hue of pink, and fluffy is no longer an adjective that can be used to describe it. Olivia is only 19 months old, what on earth is this thing going to look like in another 7 years?

Well, we decided to try and locate a duplicate teddy/blanket/rattle to keep on hand just in case. Just in case, you know, we leave it somewhere, or it gets thrown out of the grocery cart for the 500th time and I feel like teaching her a lesson about how when Mommy says stop throwing the bear for the 499th time, I mean business on the 500th. (heh, and I thought I didn't negotiate with toddlers!) So, we now have a new addition to the dust collection. A bright (almost needed to wear sunglasses!) new fluffy pink clone of the bear. We swear we are not going to take this new bear outside of the house. We promise to keep it safe from the underbelly of public places. We vowed to always keep it pink. We introduced Olivia to it with such enthusiasm, figuring of course she would recognize this bear to be the lovey for her left arm now when she walks around. You know what she did with it? She smiled at it, gave it a big hug then threw it on the ground and hasn't picked it up since.

I guess it goes to show that some old things that are loved are just hard to replace.

Want to guess what their names are?

Teddy. And New Teddy.



And just in case the Health Inspector is reading this, yes Teddy is actually clean. At least once a week when I have to pry it away from the toddler grasp it is thrown in for a bath in the washing machine. That is the glow of love, not dirt.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awwwww...those are cute! Zach's is tetah (tet tah). Abby really doesn't have one and Molly LOVES her Blue Elephant!

Unknown said...

Wash them together each week and their genes will exchange morph into identical Teddys.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes the favorite teddy...I remember it well, my Jeff had one he was given the day he was born and he carried it around everywhere everyday...I think he was about Carter's age when it had become so sad looking (Jeff had made a whole in it and would wind his finger in the stuffing pulling it out little by litte)I had to do something. So one Christmas eve, I took it while he was sleeping and refurbished "Teddy" a washing machine bath,new stuffing,a new red ribbon, holes sewn up and put it in a wrapped box and put under the tree completed with note from Santa about how he fixed it up.
Jeff had to run upstairs to make sure it wasn't some new teddy.
Andrea, Thank you for sharing I love reading all your blogs.

Anonymous said...

Andrea -- so cute and so true in regard to their lovies!! Sorry Olivia didn't take the bait with New Teddy! :O)