Un-Bear-able..

It was still kind of dark when I returned from my ungodly-hour spin class this morning. I had taken a few steps into the house when I saw, under Sawyer's new play garage that for some reason has taken up residence four feet from the front door, a piece of blue fabric.

Bear.

The best gift we ever got for Sawyer arrived at his baby shower. My friend Focker and his wife (duh, Mrs. Focker!) gave us, among some other things, a little blue blanket with a bear attached to it.

We put that bear in Sawyer's crib as soon as he slept in it. Since he never took a pacifier, we wanted to give him some sort of security item.

By the time he could really hold onto things, Bear became his constant companion. He carried him everywhere. Which wasn't so bad, until he started dragging him around in the dirt outside in our backyard. And because we were too stupid to go out and buy him an identical one, we lived in constant fear of losing Bear, or of him becoming irreparably damaged.

We finally had to limit Bear's travel to just inside the house (we tried just upstairs, but he kept somehow migrating downstairs like a pregnant woman to a refrigerator). Unless we were traveling by air. Then Bear was right there flying the friendly skies with us to Seattle and Philadelphia and Boston and even Hawaii.

When Sawyer got tired, he'd work Bear's satin trim between his fingers until he drifted off.

Now that Sawyer is almost four, Bear has started to be left behind. We noticed that Bear was not always requested for naps. Sometimes we'd be the ones retrieving him without Sawyer even noticing.

So that is how Bear came to spend a lonely night on the cold hardwood floor, forgotten under a plastic garage.


I took Bear upstairs, where Sawyer was already awake and sitting in our bed next to his snoozing Daddy.

"Sawyer! Bear is so sad! You left him downstairs all by himself last night. He missed sleeping with you in Race Car bed. He was scared. And now he's very sad!"

Sawyer looked at me, and without missing a beat, said:

"Mommy, Bear is not sad. He's pretend. He's just a toy. Real bears live in the forest and they are happy all the time."

Bear spent nap time today on the arm of our couch. Forgotten again. Another small shedding of baby skin.