Some of you may have noticed that Elliott has moved from carrying an American Express card with him everywhere he travels, to a spatula, and now to a bear. When he carried the
AMEX card, I put out an ABP for cards and was actually very impressed with the number of you that kept the cards you received in the mail and sent them to us. We had so many that I could literally have a new one for every day of the month. And of couse, that was when Elliott decided they no longer interested him and he moved on to a
spatula.
However, I was a little ill-prepared when it came to the spatula, and after a trip to the mall one day, when we left, Elliott no longer had it with him. Fortunately, I seemed more distressed about it than he did. Immediately after losing his precious cooking utensil, he took up Bear as his companion. He sleeps with Bear, feeds Bear, kisses Bear, hugs Bear, feeds Bear, wrestles with Bear, takes Bear on walks, rubs his runny nose all over Bear, throws Bear aside one minute, and then searches frantically for him the next. Needless to say, Bear has been through quite a bit and has not had a bath yet. Several weeks of colds and many drool filled nights have not been kind to Bear. Needless to say, he is well loved by Elliott, and has the smell & scruffiness to prove it.
Also needless to say, Bear has become a very important part of our family. For example, Bear usually ends up coming with us wherever we go, but then is cast aside at some point during our trip and it is my job to keep track of him so that when Elliott suddenly remembers there is a Bear in his life, I can pull Bear out of my backpack and make the universe right again. But today, Bear did not come with us to the library. At one point, Elliott suddenly remembered Bear and called upon me to produce him. When I told him, Bear was at home and not here, he did not believe me and demanded I open my backpack and prove I was not holding Bear hostage. Luckily, I had pretzels in my bag which were enough to distract him from the fact that we had abandoned an important member of our family at home.
So because of the important role Bear plays in our lives right now, I felt it was important to try and find Bear clones in the event that the unspeakable happened. Bear was given to Elliott last Thanksgiving by a co-worker of Dan's. Luckily, Bear's tag gives away his origins - he is sold exclusively at Toys-R-Us. We went there over the weekend, on the off chance that this model of Bear still might be in production and may be sold in Illinois at this Toys-R-Us. I really doubted it, but thought I should at least try. To our surprise, there he was! They had three in stock. We bought two (I was only going to get one, but Dan said we should get at least two - and I thought I was neurotic).
We weren't quite sure how to handle this situation. Do we show the Bear clones to Elliott? How would he react? Can you tell the difference between the real Bear and a Bear clone?
I think its pretty obvious, especially if you are holding them & get a whiff of the real Bear's head. There's no way that Elliott could mistaken one for the other. So the question was what would Ellioitt do if we tried to swap them? Would he notice that Bear no longer had his characteristic smell or matted down fur? Would he spot the clone a mile away and have nothing to do with it? Would he be disappointed in us because we were trying to pull a fast one on him (further adding to the list of things he would tell his therapist about us years later)? And what if he saw the bears all together? How would he react? Would his universe turn on end at the realization that Bear is not unique? Would he start to question his own existence?
Obviously, I haven't been getting enough sleep lately and have been way over-thinking this. Turns out, Elliott could care less (Dan believes this further proves that Elliott is indeed his son and is as observant as Dan is). We got all the bears safely home and I snuck away to remove the clones' sweaters while Elliott was having lunch. Bear originally came with a
white sweater, but one day, we were walking through the rain together and Elliott tripped and Bear landed right in a puddle. When we got to the car, Elliott demanded that Bear's sweater be taken off and since then, he has never wanted it back on Bear again. So while I was removing the sweaters off the Bear clones, Elliott noticed something was up and came over to investigate. I quickly hid the clones under my winter coat, but he was relentless in uncovering what I was hiding from him (probably because he's learned that hiding something from him usually involves something delicious). Discovering the new bears, he immediately shouted, "Dare!" (what he calls Bear) and abandoned Bear for a clone. Perhaps Bear's lack of a bath had a negative effect on Elliott as well. He really showed no interest in giving up the Bear clone for the original when presented with the option. The above photo of Bear and Bear Clone #1 was actually taken when Elliott was napping. The reason there aren't two clones in the picture, is because Elliott was napping with Clone #2. The original Bear recently took a spin in the laundry machine and smells much better now. All three Bears are currently in rotation without so much as a double take from Elliott when they are swapped and I've learned a valuable lesson in the observational skills of a 16 month old. The next time I run into an asian woman, I'm going to hand Elliott to her and take a nap for a few hours.
...and this video was taken yesterday. He's almost 17 months old now and has found a new appreciation for this bouncy chair. I had to stop taping when I did because he figured out how to catapult himself out the kitchen window.
...and this video was taken yesterday. He's almost 17 months old now and has found a new appreciation for this bouncy chair. I had to stop taping when I did because he figured out how to catapult himself out the kitchen window.
