It all began with a Curious George stuffed animal. It was given to my son for his first Christmas by a dear neighbor. It didn’t take long for that monkey to become my son’s emotional support stuffed animal. We couldn’t do much without it.
For those first several months, I guarded that stuffed animal with my life. I knew the sleep and sanity I’d lose if anything happened to it. Plus, I had nightmares hearing about all the poor moms (and kiddos) who lost a stuffed animal at the zoo, park or grocery store. I couldn’t handle the thought of losing our Georgie.
Then I heard a story about a mom who bought a duplicate of her son’s favorite stuffed animal.
The mom bought it with the intention of giving it to her son’s child (her grandchild) one day. That got me to thinking about duplicates and how I might be able to harness the power of an incidental Georgie, should the need ever arise.
I scoured the internet and found an identical Curious George stuffed animal.
The issue was then that Old Georgie (OG) had some love and life on him. So, I said a prayer and swapped New Georgie (NG) in to play, to see what would happen. Thankfully, my son did not notice the initial switch. NG got just as much love and life over time.
I continued this swapping process until just a few weeks ago, when one of the Georgies died.
It’s hard to say whether it was OG or NG, but poor Georgie ended up covered in barf. It didn’t matter what I did, the smell would not come out. So, that Georgie crossed over in to the afterlife of stuffed toys.
Thank goodness I had a backup Georgie. My son was amazed when I miraculously pulled a clean stuffed animal from the wash.
