Why it's good to have a back-up snuggly

Jonah's favorite thing, his snuggly, is "Cow." He loves Cow.

Cow is a wind-up musical box sort-of-stuffed animal. She (it?) was a gift from Timmer and Alisa. Beautifully it plays "Mary Had a Little Lamb" instead of say... a song that has something to do with cows.

The thing about Cow is that there is only one. (Sort of a Highlander movie reference for you geeks out there.) We've looked for a back-up online but to no avail. So we don't have a backup Cow if something goes wrong. For example if the nanny decided to throw Cow in the washing machine and dryer we would be out of luck...

I know what you're wondering. What happens to a music box when it's gone through the wash? Right. I know, because I've seen it twice now. What happens is that the music box stops working. And if it's inside a stuffed animal then you have to do stuffed animal surgery to extract it, repair it, and then sew it all up.

Sure, sure, why not explain to the nanny something like "Hey, don't ever wash Cow again. Ever." I thought I had, but her English isn't great, and my Spanish isn't as good as I thought. But also she really likes to keep things clean. And Cow does get pretty grubby over time. So the 2nd time she didn't put Cow in the washer. Kelly figured out later that, in fact, she had hand-washed Cow. But she put Cow in the dryer. Yeah, that was plenty enough centripetal force to screw up the music box again.

When Jonah was younger he didn't notice when we fixed Cow. Or maybe he was napping? But this time he was right there. And let me tell you, he did not like to see me cutting Cow open. Our nanny tried to distract him but mostly he cried the whole time. That's a lot of pressure when you're doing surgery. You know, when the family member is right next to you crying and grabbing at the patient.

My advice to anyone who wrangles babies is that you want to have two (2) of whatever weird toy your baby loves. Just in case. And it's good to rotate between them because the babies are smart. And have secret baby senses. And if you try to replace their well worn bear with a brand new one they will cry. And blame you. And wonder if you're smoking crack because it's so obviously not their bear.