Near emergencies

Q's best friend is his yet unnamed stuffed seal. Said seal has been through a number of traumas though, and we are actually on our second version. Q received the original during a trip to the Seattle Aquarium. It quickly became his constant sleeping companion. Until one day it disappeared. We think it may have been left behind during a bleary-eyed early morning trip to a balloon rally. T quickly set about procuring another one. He found a match online, but accidentally got the next size up. This giant seal is roughly the size of Q as serves as sort of a body pillow.

He has become even more attached in recent weeks. When we go in to retrieve him from his crib, he immediately reaches for his seal and often totes it to daycare. Every night, he sticks his thumb in his mouth and curls up on his seal, before he drifts off to sleep. The seal sits on the counter and watches him during meals.

I always remind T to pick it up when Q takes it to daycare, but last night, he forgot! The seal spent the night at daycare, and Q had to go the entire night seal-less! We feared the worst, that he would refuse to go to sleep without this bedtime companion. But, Q was apparently quite drowsy, and T slipped him a stuffed doggie, and no one was the wiser. Crisis averted. I just have to make sure I get the seal from daycare this time, or it could be a long seal-free weekend.

We took Q to lunch today at a very good sandwich shop. We ordered him a peanut butter and jelly, while T got a BLT, and I got a Mediterranean. Our order took soooooo long. Why don't they put a rush on kid orders? T held a squirming, complaining Q while I tried to distract him with a straw wrapper. Relaxing lunches are such a thing of the past.

My college freshman year roommate is visiting this weekend. We did not know each other until the first day we walked into our closet-sized dorm room, but we ended up being very close friends. She was a small town pageant queen from Missouri, but she changed dramatically. Now she is this crazy world traveler who is road-tripping through my state with her current boyfriend before she goes backpacking in Southeast Asia for two months. Our lives have taken slightly different paths. I am so thrilled to see her and to introduce her to the men in my life.

--MM