Pat the Bunny
Today I’ve been thinking about babies. Most of you reading here now my stance on US having babies, but it seems to be baby season all around me. Pregnant ladies, newborns, friends having babies… Today my friend Shayla had her firstborn. A little girl who I can’t wait to meet. I wanted to get something special to bring our new ya-ya at the hospital, and I immediately envisioned the most cuddly teddybear ever. One she would still want to sleep with when she was 5 and scared of the dark.
Are you aware that stuffed animals are no longer something that makes a good toy for a child? I assume this is so because when I went to my local Target (because Target has everything), I found in the stuffed animal area of the toys about 10 bigger stuffed animals, and a few bins with tiny stuffed animals. That’s it. No fluffy bears, now hang-toungue dogs, nothing. What’s that all about?? Have we replaced stuffed animals with things that blink and make obnoxious sounds??
So I decided that a nice gift would be a book. I knew that Shayla had registered for a few, so I started there. I accidently ended up in the DVD area before I found the books and there were HUNDREDS of DVDs for children. When I finally found the book isle, there really weren’t very many choices, and it seemed like our friendly store helpers in red didn’t seem to think that it was very important to keep this section well-stocked.
But I did manage to find a few book for our little scholar in training, and imagine my surprise when I saw this among the meager selection:
This book was my most favorite book when I was a young kid. My parents used to read it to me constantly, and I was so attached to this book that now that I’ve grown up I’ve given it to almost every new parent I know. And then it hit me. I blame it on monthly hormones, but as soon as I picked this book up and put it in my cart and imagined Shayla and Madalyn in the new Hawaiian Girl nursery reading Pat the Bunny before bed together, I started crying. Sobbing in fact. Now can someone please explain that?
