Introducing Ted

Devon has suddenly become very interested in what I guess I'd call "attachment items" or things that she carries around with her like a pacifying object. She usually goes to sleep with Zeebie, a little zebra beanie baby that our friend Vicky gave to her. Normally Zeebie stays in the bed, or at least in her room; she really hasn't been in the habit of carrying Zeebie around with her anywhere. This morning I decided to try out our new jogging stroller. Walt had salvaged a double jogging stroller from the street several weeks ago; it was totally serviceable but it was huge -- it was a side-by-side model and just pushing it was like pushing a little RV stroller. I just couldn't stand using it even for the shortest of walks. I put an ad in Craigs List and found someone who was willing to trade the double we had for a single -- a good trade for them since a double is more expensive and a good trade for us since we got the original stroller for free -- and since the exchange happened this weekend, I decided to try out the new stroller this morning. At about 6:30 am I asked Devon if she wanted to go running in the stroller, and she said yes (I had chummed the waters a bit earlier by taking her for a couple of short spins in the stroller, and she loved the running in the stroller (and consequently every time she even sat in it, she would yell to run). So we bundled her into it (coat over jammies) and she insisted on taking Zeebie with her; he stayed with us for the entire jog. I don't know if this was because it was early morning and she's used to waking up with him or if this was just a new experience and she wnted something familiar, but it was one of the only times I remember her taking Zeebie along outside of going to bed.

Today at Elaine's Walt said she was holding on to a little stuffed bear, and she kept crying, "Mine, mine!" when he tried to wrest it from her. Finally Elaine said, "Devon, you can have the bear," and she brought it home with her. When i got home, she was carrying it all around and proudly showed me her "beear" when I came home from work. Walt said earlier when he asked her about the bear's name, she said it was "Ted." We both got a good laugh out of this. When I asked her the name of her bear, though, she never told me Ted at all. I've noticed, however, that her names for her stuffed animals and such are pretty fluid; she has a doll that for a while was Baby Layla (named after a friend), then Aaron (named after Jon's son) and now i'm not sure of her name.

Anyway, back to the Ted attachment, she even asked for Ted to sit on the table next to her when she had dinner. I was thinking for a while that perhaps she wasn't interested in a blankie or anything else to carry around, since she's never seemed interested in that before, but perhaps she's ramping up to it now.

It could also be a manifestation of the "mine" philosophy, which she has embraced with incredible vigor. Everything is "mine" these days, and it's practically impossible to wrestle something away from her if she's taking a liking to it and declared it hers. I don't know how long the mine, mine, mine phase lasts, but neither of us will be sorry to be rid of it.