Good bye...

The first step in building a media room is to make room for the room. This means that our storage room needs to be less storage and more room so the time has finally come to purge! I have given away clothes, bikes, strollers, books, toy cars, years worth of Little Pet Shop collections, Bratz dolls, teddy bears and purses. But there's one thing I can not give up and that is my stuffed animals. Most of these were either purchased or given to me at an important time in my life and have a very special meaning so I decided for a Family Home Evening activity that I would introduce my best stuffies to my kids and tell them the stories that go along with them.

And now, I will introduce my stuffies to you (there are two very important ones missing--Blue and Teddy--because I think they are tucked away in another bin so I will introduce them to  you in another post)

This is 34 year old Duffy.  He was my good luck charm for skating competitions and swim meets.  Duffy is unique in that he is full of beanies long before Beanie Babies and the like became popular.  I remember hanging medals around his neck and pinning awards to him.  He has definitely been through a lot!

This guy never got a name but he was given to me by a sweet old man. When I was about 11 years old, some girls and I decided that we wanted to form our own cool club and since we needed to buy cool stuff like wood to build our club house, paint for signage, and candy for sustenance, we decided that we needed to raise some money. We put an ad in the paper saying that we would cut the grass for something like .25 cents an hour.An elderly, lonely man saw the ad and called our parents to hire us. The first day we went we cut his front yard and the back yard and he not only gave us jumbo sized chocolate bars but each of us got $5.00!! That was a stinkin' load of money. Suddenly the clubhouse became less important and we each kept the money for ourselves. We continued to cut the lawn on a weekly basis for this elderly man for a couple of years and progressively we would spend less time cutting his grass and more time in his home eating his food and listening to his stories.He had had a stroke and he had a thick English accent so there were many times that we couldn't understand everything he said but we knew that he loved having us there. And at the end of each visit we got 5.00 and a giant chocolate bar. As our relationship grew so did the gifts--I believe it was my 11th birthday when he took me to the jewellery store and told me to pick anything that I wanted. I chose a very grown up watch (which I still have). After that he took me to a toy store and despite my objections bought me the biggest teddy bear I had seen to date. This is that teddy. I think I shall call him Peter after Mr. Hensen. I learned years ago that he died of another stroke. He was a wonderful man.

On the bottom is Patches and on the top is Mutsy.  They are Gunds and were all the rage in the 1990s.  While we were in University, Hubby knew that I wanted a Gund for my birthday so he bought Patches and had it placed in my mailbox so that when I went to pick up the mail on my birthday there, greeting me with his soft loveliness, was the face of this little puppy.  What a great surprise but, and there's always a but, it's wasn't the right one.  Oh sure, I tried to love Patches but my heart really belonged to Mutsy.  Mutsy was very expensive for a university student so I couldn't afford to just buy him all willy nilly like but my employed boyfriend could.  But, and there's that but again, he wouldn't.  But my besties were listening all those years and when my 21st birthday came up they pooled their money and bought Mutsy for me.  And not to be outdone by Hubby's surprise of Patches many years before, they too got creative and hid Mutsy for the big reveal. It was the night of a BBQ and the girls had loaded a cooler into my brand new car (present from my parents) and as I went to unload it they insisted that I open it. Admittedly I was a little cautious about it because I was afraid a snake or rat would jump out at me, but there, laying on top of the hamburger buns was my hearts' delight--Mutsy! What a great gift!

This is Spinctie, given to me by Hubby after I had surgery on certain muscles in my nether regions.  I'm sure by the name of the stuffy that you can figure out what the surgery was on. Ewww.... Good thing the teddy wasn't dark brown... Double ewwww....

And this is Lucky.  Lucky has a very special tale to tell for it was him that I clutched for the whole 4 hours of Hubby's open heart surgery.  There are two pictures of Lucky, one so you can appreciate the face that says 'Eh, whatever, just chill' and two so that you can see the little bracelet tied upon his tail.  That bracelet was one that I made for Hubby between the time that we were told about his surgery and the time that he had the actual operation.  Because he had to take off all jewellery for the operation, we took this from Hubby's wrist and tied it to Lucky's tail.  That was over 20 years ago and it remains on Lucky's tail to this day.

No introductions are needed for this little fellow.  After finding out we were pregnant, we decided on a Winnie the Pooh theme for the nursery.  Because I had a miscarriage prior to Mo, we didn't want to tempt fate and buy anything for the baby before the first trimester.  For 12 weeks I looked at this little stuffy in the store, I cradled it and squeezed it and loved it for everything that it meant to me...a baby.  On the day I reached my 12th week, I marched into the store and bought Pooh and brought him home.  It was not only an adorable face that made me smile when I looked at it, but it symbolized that the little blessing growing inside me was going to one day become a real person.  And that person became Mo, my lovely first born.  Good thing we didn't name her Pooh...

And this little gal doesn't have a name but she was the first teddy bear that we received after our Mo was born.

These little M&M's are very special to me.  You see the little pink one?  That's Kiki.  And the red one?  That's Mo.  They are my M&M girls (both girls' names start with M) and the pink one was attached to Kiki's bassinet in the ICU when she was first born.  Mo had one at home and Kiki had one at the hospital--it was our way to keep them connected.  When the hospital staff took Kiki to the operating room they  wheeled her down the corridor in her bassinet while Pink M watched over her.   I'll never forget the scene--beautiful new baby in a mint green onsie, with a little knitted cap, no socks or coverings on her feet, IV's in her arm, and a Pink M&M protecting her...
When Kiki came back from surgery, her onsie came back, her cap came back, her blanket came back...but no M&M.  We were devastated...not because we'd lost the stuffy but because all that it had come to symbolize.  I'll never forget the phone call the ICU made to the operating room the next day..."We are missing blah, blah, blah, and blah...and most importantly a pink stuffed M&M.  Do you have it?  You do?! "  The hospital staff must have thought we were a few sandwiches short of a picnic but they humored us and understood that stressed out parents need anything to cling too...even a pink M&M.


There's one more stuffy I need to share with you.  His name is Animal and he is a muppet.  After he came out of the storage bag complete insanity insued...

...but, and there's always a but, that shall be another post.


I hope you have enjoyed my little stroll down memory lane, and I encourage you, if you have some collections that have special meaning to you, to take them out and tell your kids about them.