When you have children, after a few years it seems that you start to have a collection of stuffed animals. There are so many cute and adorable stuffed animals out there. They are a great gift for almost anyone or on any occasion. Once when I was visiting relatives, they gave my firstborn a stuffed clown. It was cute but nothing out of the ordinary. He clung to that little clown and wasn’t happy when he was out of place. She loved that thing. Her grandmother was once at the store with her. She was about 8 months old and sitting in a shopping cart. I would watch the shoppers walk through the door. As they entered, she determined which customers looked good and then threw the clown to the ground. The good buyer would pick up the clown and tell her how cute she was and she would return a dazzling smile in return. What a child !! Every now and then I had to sneak past the clown to wash it off. Being quite old when it was given to him, it wasn’t long before it started to come apart at the seams. I was always sewing it. We finally had to say “goodbye” to the clown who made a trip to the dumpster.

Stuffed tiger

It always seemed like we had more stuffed animals than we had space. One year our 7th son, who was about 8 years old at the time, asked for a stuffed animal for Christmas. He said he had never gotten one for himself. What ?? How could that have happened? We had many in the house. But, he told me; he didn’t have one that was his. I told myself that I was too old for a stuffed animal and that I would probably rather have something more “fun.” He let me know that his heart’s true desire was a stuffed animal. So for Christmas we give her a stuffed animal. I thought he was too old to have a cute bear, so I bought him a stuffed tiger. He loved it. I slept with him every night. The tiger was his friend; someone he could hug whenever he wanted too and the tiger would comfort him. Still have that tiger today