I don’t know what has made me think of it, but I just started thinking about Zoe’s Sleepy Bear today and really miss him. It’s a sad tragic story of his disappearance. The picture above is Zoe with her “Sleepy Bear” in 2005.

Sleepy Bear was Zoe’s cuddly toy for bedtimes/naptimes/and general security needs. She’d had him from the time she was about 9 month old on. He helped her learn to fall asleep, survive nursery during those hard separation anxiety times, and generally made her happy. He went on all our overnight trips and an occasional trip to Wal-Mart (always in the car while we shopped). We, unfortunately, only had one of him because when we found out that cuddly toys would work great for getting babies to sleep, her bear had been discontinued. Oh well, she was attached to him right from the start. On our vacation this summer, we stayed overnight, at a hotel on the way up and then on the way back.

I think that on the way back, we were in such a hurry to get home, that we didn’t really scan the room for any leftovers. We believe that Sleepy Bear “slept in” and decided to stay at the hotel. Ughhhh, we got home that night and searched high and low for him but he never turned up.

And Zoe’s attitude…she was fine with it. Mark and I were almost in tears. Her cuddly from infanthood….disappeared. She picked another animal and slept with it and even decided to call one of her other bears Sleepy Bear.

Mark searched in vain for Sleepy Bear calling for days. I think the hotel people just thought we were absolutely crazy to be looking for it…he did look a little ragged and worn and needed a bath badly. And to think, he’s hanging out in the dump somewhere with no one to sleep with him! I’m still sad just thinking about it.

Fortunately, we had learned our lesson after spending hours searching for Sleepy Bear on several occasions. All of the kids have two cuddly toys (although Ace is down to one as one disappeared in D.C. last year). They also have popular ones that shouldn’t be discontinued for a little while and should be easy to find.

Josiah’s modeling the grasshopper bumgenius 2.0 one size diaper! Isn’t his little bum cute! For more information about these precious awesome cloth diapers, click here. I will put up a post soon about why we use cloth and how much I love them! Especially these diapers!

Josiah had his 2 month check up today and things are looking good!
Here are his stats:
14 lbs 3 oz (97%)
25 inches long (97%)
16 1/2 inches head (90%)

He likes his momma’s milk!! All else checked out really good. He got four shots but that’s the most he’ll have to get at once. I know not everyone feels led to get the shots, but we do.

I asked her to check out his eyes because for awhile he would not focus on our face, which anyone with a baby knows that what they are supposed to be able to focus on. I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks, he’s gotten better at focusing on us but still only does it about half the time. And tracking an object (or following an object or us) has been accomplished about 50% of the time as well. That has improved because he wasn’t doing it at all. She noticed what I was talking about but did note that he could track just didn’t stay focused for long. I told her that sometimes when we’re talking to him he looks past us or above us and that’s with no distractions. She said some babies are slow to develop their eye coordination and for now we are going to watch it and if it doesn’t improve, then we’ll see an eye doctor. She didn’t note any cataracts or other visible eye impairments. So pray with us please. My dad has really bad eyesight and I want to make sure if Josiah has inherited it that we catch it earlier than when my dad’s was caught.

It’s as if someone has turned the light bulb on for Josiah. After supper, he was up and ready to go with smiles galore. He kept on playing and smiling and making sweet cooing sounds that almost (but not quite) sound like laughs. He is starting to tolerate belly time a lot better. Of course, mommy and daddy are his greatest source of entertainment. He still gives Zoe, Ace, and Liam funny looks.

Here are the great pictures Mark got:

“Why is this woman squeezing me??”