Mended

Avery is a stuffed animal lover. He has quite a few and loves them all. But he has two that are particularly special to him. One is a dog…which is his second favorite and his favorite, favorite, favorite is a bear he got a year ago. He bonded to it strongly because he got it almost the same day he stopped nursing and they have been close ever since. He can’t sleep with out it (more importantly, the tag, which is the real comfort device) and carries it around with him all the time.

The other day he frantically brought the worn out old bear to me and started crying saying it was broken while pointing at this.

Like, literally smaller than my thumbnail. But as the loving mother I am, of course I said I’d fix it to which he tearfully pointed at the spot again and said ‘fix it?’ pathetically.

Aside from the actual fixing part I had been looking for an opportunity to restuff the poor thing since it was basically a bag of nothing at this point and this was the perfect time for that.

Pinching his butt to show how little stuffing was in there, don’t judge.

I used reddish thread because unfortunately I didn’t have ‘bear orange’ in my thread collection….oops. I simply used the bald spot as a marker for cutting a tiny hole. Then stuffed the stuffing through the hole and sewed it shut leaving not even the smallest of scars.

I also used this moment to sew up a popped seam on his ear.

All better:) Or should I say beartter.

Like he really needs a scarf asking for a hug…Avery needs no urging.

In other bear related news, Avery finally named him Tagger which is bizarrely appropriate. He still calls him ‘bear’ most of the time but every once in a while I get scolded for not calling him Tagger.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to post this so that I can look back and remember how much this guy means to Avery. It’s sweet to see him set the bear up in his room and act like it’s playing with him, making him talk on the toy phone to ‘Geema’ and showing him all the trucks and cars and trains as he drives them around. No matter how much he doesn’t want to go to bed, the second he has his bear his eyelids sag and he tags away until sleep overcomes. It’s really precious.

So the fact that this bear looks like it’s aged twenty years in just one year makes sense a little.

Question: Did you ever have a beloved toy/stuffed animal as a child? Does your child now have one? Eli is a blanket boy I think.