Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

I see two girls fighting over me.



We've had a situation in our house for awhile now.  A serious one, because it influences bedtime, and bedtime is a serious thing, if you ask me.

Hope is a stuffed animal lover.  She snuggles them, plays with them, collects them.  But she's never been attached to a specific one.  She never had any type of lovey.  Each night she chose a different stuffed animal to cuddle with.

The offending Bear

And then, during a particularly rough nighttime patch (when it happened I can't say for sure because we have certainly had a lot of those patches since she was born), in my groggy and desperate-for-sleep state, I pulled the nearest stuffed animal to my chest, gave it a big squeeze, and told her that when she was feeling sad or lonely she could hug that animal and it would be like Mommy was giving her a hug.

So she did.  And it seemed to help.  Some nights she asked for her "Bella Bear" and other nights she was fine without it.

Somewhere along the line, growing from an indifferent baby not caring what toys were hers into a very mindful toddler, Paige also formed an attachment to a stuffed animal.  In fact, she asks for her "Papa Bear" every single night.

And you know what?  It is the same bear.  The.  Exact.  Same.  Bear.

Do you know how many stuffed animals we have?  We have about 1,722 stuffed animals ranging in size, shape, color, and fluffiness.  Do you know how many of those animals are bears?  One.  We have one flippin' bear in the entire house.

So of course, try as I may, I could not influence the mind of my stubborn toddler or my equally-as-stubborn-when-it-comes-to-her-stuffed-animals preschooler.

Our bedtime is a little dance between me silently praying no one will ask for Bella/Papa Bear and one of the girls requesting said bear and then me hoping the other girl did not hear the request and then fumbling between who should get the darn bear when they both start calling out for it.

Needless to say, we got another bear.  But because I (mush of a mother that I am) could not figure out who would get the new bear, each girl got a new bear.

Our house is exploding with stuffed animals.

I took the girls to Build a Bear, and told them we are getting bears.  Only bears.  Not puppies, not dragons, not bunnies with adorable long ears.  Bears.

And these wonderful, new, lovely bears are to become the new nighttime cuddle bears.  Bella/Papa Bear will have her (his?) own special place to sleep and they each get to sleep with their brand new bears.

The optimist in me is hopeful.  The pessimist?  Pretty sure we wasted our money.  And the realist just knows that it probably won't work out quite like I'm expecting.

In any case, tonight will be the first night with their new bears.

Wish me luck.

With their new bears