Show & Tell, Part 1: Look what followed me home...

This week's Show & Tell comes in two parts. Yes, when I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll. ; ) This is Part 1. Part 2 appears just above this post, here.

My belated thanks to all of you who sent comments & good thoughts for me, dh & Katie on Aug. 5-7. We both really appreciated it.

I kept myself busy all day Friday, cleaning house (so I wouldn't have to do it on Saturday). After having my shower, I spent some quiet time going through Katie's things & re-reading my blog entries from last year that told her story. After dh got home, we ordered in Chinese (as we did when we got home from the hospital, 11 years prior). And then we went to the market, got some pink roses, and headed to the cemetery.

Afterwards, we decided to head to the local megabookstore for a Starbucks treat & a browse.

And I found THIS little guy:



A soft, fuzzy, cuddly Classic Pooh teddy bear. A whole display of them, actually, along with Classic Eeoyores and Classic Piglets, and copies of Pooh story collections (which I have).

Katie's nursery was to have been decorated in Classic Pooh -- we have a quilt, bumper pads, curtain vallance & matching wallpaper border, bought on sale at Sears in late July 1998 -- among the very few baby items that we bought during my rollercoaster pregnancy. And in the years since then, we've added to our Classic Pooh collection.

But of course, times change and baby fashions change, and Classic Pooh has fallen somewhat out of favour.

Needless to say, I simply could not resist. : ) It just seemed like fate that I would find a whole pile of Classic Pooh stuff on Katie's special day.
I wasn't quite sure what I would do with it or where I would put it when we got home. But when I walked into my bedroom, I instantly knew where Pooh should go.

I have two other (Gund) teddy bears sitting on our bed. I bought one for my annual workplace Christmas teddy bear drive some years ago. He was just so cute I couldn't resist buying a second one for myself. A few years later, I couldn't resist buying another, smaller Gund bear.

Dh once asked me if the two teddys were representative of me & him. I never really thought of it that way. I did always think of them as guardians of the house while we were away. ; ) I also didn't think of it until later, but they reminded me of Mr. Bear and Little Bear in Dare Wright's book The Lonely Doll, which I read & loved as a child, but had forgotten about, until I read an article about the author in Vanity Fair several years ago.

Anyway, the twosome is now a threesome. Maybe I AM unconsciously trying to recreate our little family??


This wasn't the first time I found comfort in the bookstore on August 7. On that day in 2004, we spent the day in much the same way, heading to the bookstore after visiting the cemetery. As I wrote in a post on a childless living board I frequent:

"... (a mocha frappucino is a great mood lifter, lol). They always play music in the store, of course, & while I was browsing, they started playing Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which I have always loved & always gives me the chills. It just seemed so appropriate for the day! Then, after that song ended, they started into "Stand by Me." It just kept going: the next song after that was "Lean on Me," & then a great sort of bluesy soul song called "Have a Little Faith in Me" (VanMorrison? Joe Cocker?). And as we left the store, they were playing "I Will Remember You" by Sarah McLauchlin (sp?). I just couldn't believe it -- it was like it was tailor-made listening for me. I got teary & then I started to laugh as I listened. Whoever it was that was responsible for the playlist, thanks!!"

To see what others are showing & telling this week, hop over here.