Juniordwarf has a lot of teddies. (The teddies are his vast
collection of soft toys, ranging from my old panda through many different
species including tigers, a frog and several actual teddies. This is as opposed
to the animals, which are all his plastic animals.)
Different ones have been his favourites at different times,
and their names have changed over the years as well.
He has a teddy called Chocolate-the-Girl and a teddy called
Chocolate-the-Boy. I don’t know where these names came from, or why he thought
Chocolate was a unisex name – or even a name at all – but those names have
stuck.
Chocolate-the-Boy came from one of those grabby prize
machines that they have in pubs. Juniordwarf somehow managed to win it when he
and Slabs went to the pub for a meal one night when I was away. Slabs says he
didn’t even see Juniordwarf do it (but he’s since repeated the performance in
another machine and we still have no idea how he managed it other than pure
fluke).
Chocolate-the-Girl’s origin is a mystery. We think one of
Slabs’ cousins gave her to us for Juniordwarf when he was a baby. She is
actually Zoe from Sesame Street
http://www.sesamestreet.org/muppets/zoe
, but Juniordwarf hasn’t watched much Sesame Street and doesn’t know the
characters. When he found out she was Zoe, he said that must be her nickname.
I think he is particularly fond of Chocolate-the-Girl
because she has long hair that he can twist around and put up (just like he
tries to do with mine). Ever since he’s been very young he’s been completely
hung up on particular women we know, and obsessed about whether their hair is
up or down. The most important thing he reports back on each day at school is
what his teacher was wearing in her hair that day.
I’m just glad he doesn’t know about those old Barbie
hairstyling sets that were popular when I was younger.
Earlier in the year, when lots of his classmates were taking
their teddies to school, Chocolate-the-Girl was the one Juniordwarf took to
school every day. A couple of months ago he told me that Chocolate-the-Girl
would be staying home with me on my work from home day. So I got into the
spirit of this, and took some photos of her to show him what she did during the
day. He thought it was great.
A couple of days later, Juniordwarf wanted me to take Chocolate-the-Boy to
work, so I did the same thing for him.
After that, Chocolate-the-Girl became a regular visitor to
my workplace, and Chocolate-the-Boy started to accompany Slabs.
Yesterday Chocolate-the-Boy was supposed to go to work with
Slabs. Slabs told Juniordwarf to leave him on his bag. He didn’t, and
Chocolate-the-Boy got left at home.
When Slabs picked Juniordwarf up, he’d been trying to think
of a story to explain why Chocolate-the-Boy wasn’t with him. Last week, my
reason for Chocolate-the-Girl having been left at home already being at
home when we got there was that she’d got a headache at my work and had to come
home early, on the bus. He was fine with that.
Juniordwarf saved Slabs the trouble of coming up with an
equally plausible explanation. He said that Chocolate-the-Boy had gone to the
moon and he wouldn’t be back until Monday. Problem solved.
Today Chocolate-the-Girl was meant to come to work with me.
I decided to put her in the drink holder of my bag so she could see where we
were going while I was walking to work.
This was all very well until I was almost at work and
discovered her missing.
The absolute gut-wrenching horror that fell upon me at that
moment is indescribable.
My reaction was sheer and utter panic.
All I could think about was how devastated my little boy was
going to be when I told him Chocolate-the-Girl had gone and really wasn’t
coming back, and how betrayed he’d feel that he’d entrusted me with his teddy
and I’d lost her.
I was almost in tears as I started retracing my steps. I was
hoping that she hadn’t fallen out on the road and been run over, or that
someone hadn’t found her and decided to keep her for their kids.
It was an unbearable walk. I was getting more and more frantic
as I scanned the street and the road for any sign on Chocolate-the-Girl. It
brought to mind this blog post I read recently about a small girl who had lost
her beloved toy dog,
http://www.handsfreemama.com/2011/10/18/a-well-loved-child/
and the impact that had on her mother, as she realised that a day would come
that her daughter wouldn’t need her teddy any more, wouldn’t want to hold her
hand any more . . .
But I digress.
I was imagining what I was going to say to Juniordwarf,
where I was going to go for coffee to calm myself down before I went into work,
whether I’d even be able to handle going to work knowing I’d made this terrible
mistake, and indeed, even trying to explain why I was so upset about losing a
teddy bear, and why on earth I was bringing my child’s teddy to work in the
first place, I mean who does that? Really?
I was on the last leg of the return trip when I saw a flash
of orange. It was Chocolate-the-Girl. She was sitting on the ground propped up
against a fence, so someone had obviously found her, seen (by the fact that
Juniordwarf’s name was written on her tag) that she did belong to someone,
realised that the owner would probably be back as soon as they realised she was
gone, and moved her out of the way so she didn’t get wrecked.
I was totally relieved. Beyond relieved. There must be a
word to describe the relief. It was the exact opposite feeling I’d had when I
discovered her missing.
I picked her up and gave her a hug.
Yes, I actually hugged a small soft toy.
I was so grateful to whoever found her and left her there
for me to find. I thanked them on Twitter and I thank them again here. They
will most likely never read this, but I’m sending them positive thoughts,
thanks and well wishes for their honesty. It made my day.
The only other good thing to come out of this is that I
covered so much ground, my day’s walking was done before I even got to work.
I didn’t let Chocolate-the-Girl out of my sight for the rest
of the day. This included her sitting in on our staff meeting and coming
shopping with me at lunchtime, much to the amusement of my colleagues.
When Juniordwarf asked what Chocolate-the-Girl had done
today I decided not to mention her escapade. He was just happy knowing she’d
been with me.
