My Etsy shop, Little Sidekick had only been open a few months when I received an email from a woman with an unusual request. She wanted to purchase something from me, but not any of the items I had listed for sale; she wanted to buy a stuffed monkey toy that I had used as a prop in one of my photos. Her son had officially adopted an identical monkey as his "security" item, and it had gone missing for a few days.
"I think I cried almost as much as he did" she told me, and after the monkey was recovered, she was determined to find a back-up. After searching exhaustively for one, with no luck, she stumbled across a listing of mine for a crocheted monkey hat. In the photos my son is modeling the hat and holding the exact stuffed monkey she had been looking for.
Her note went on to say that before she emailed me to ask about the monkey, she visited my blog "to see if you might have mentioned anything about the monkey being special to one of your children before I asked about it." From my blog, she discovered I was in a band, and that I had just met her husband a couple of weeks before, when my band played the music venue he owns! Given that I live in Texas, and they're in Maryland, it struck us both that this was an amazingly random coincidence of the kind that really makes you realize what a small world we live in.
Of course, I sent the monkey to her. I had to search for it, found it under the changing table, and warned her that it had probably spent at least some amount of time in my own son's mouth. For us it was just one of a gazillion stuffed animals we own and had had a brief career as a photo prop, but for her son it was a treasured childhood toy, so I was so happy to be able to help. She also ended up buying a monkey hat from me and later reported that the original monkey had lost its nose, so the replacement arrived just in time!
4 comments:
I LOVE this story (and as you know that little face!)
I know this story all too well. You never know which lovey will become the most important one to your child, but you better bet that when my daughter picked hers (a bear wearing a night shirt and a cap) that I scrambled to buy a back up, just in case! Eventually her bear was old and worn and I replaced him with the 2nd bear! Phew! xo
I know it's true; you never know what they'll become attached to. I tried finding a duplicate of Lovey with no luck, and even if you find another, they may reject it because it's not worn in the same way or doesn't smell the same.
Our sitter told us about a wise woman who trained her child to love on a dish towel; any old dish towel. You always have one of those on hand, right? I thought that was so brilliant.
I had to come back to let you guys know that Lovey is officially lost. Husband had stuffed it in his pocket instead of bringing it inside the house before taking the kiddo for a little walk. It must have fallen out unnoticed, and we couldn't find it anywhere last night.
It was a very traumatic night for all of us; the whole family was in tears, our son inconsolable.
He's still asleep this morning. We'll have to see how the first day without Lovey goes :(
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