Stuffed Pink

What would you do if you found out your best friend had the stuffin's kicked out of him?

You would abandon him and find a new and cuddlier best friend, right?

Exactly--at least that's what Jack-boy has done.

He and his pink bear have been pretty tight for as long as he was able to toddle. Not wanting my son to get the stuffins' kicked out of him when he reaches kindergarten, I even once tried to replace the bear with a more acceptable brown bear. He did okay for about 6 months, until his sister found the "pink puppy" as Jack had named him and gave it back. It was a wonderful reunion. Most mornings we found Jack followed closely by pink puppy with a leash around his neck and being dragged across all sorts of surfaces, both wet and dry. It was pure love.

Today, I had to wash pink puppy after an unfortunate encounter with our slobbery k9. When he came out of the drier he looked like this:

I tried to set him up to welcome Jack after he got out of his shower, but he sadly just slumped flat like this:

Thinking Jack would be devastated, I thought the best route was to pretend it didn't happen and hide any evidence that pink puppy's insides were now very much on his outsides. Jack hugged his best buddy once:

Then, realizing his pal had been overdone, very non-dramatically just replaced him with this:

I wish there were a happier end to this toy story. Really, really, do. But then again, I guess brown puppy works just as well.