A Childhood Toy You Once Loved

This is Doggy.  Doggy was my favourite stuffed animal as a kid.  He is in pretty good shape all things considered but if you look at him closely you'll notice that parts of his ears and nose are missing and he has a chip out of one of his eyes, a hole in his leg and a chunk of fur missing out of the nape of his neck.  He was well loved.

I wanted to include a picture of Doggy and I but unfortunately I couldn't find any.  However, we shared a lot of memories.  One particular memory always stands out to me.  I think it was likely one of the last times that I played with Doggy outside of the house as I was getting "too old" for him.  I was with my immediate family and my grandma and we had been to a restaurant in Port Stanley.  I remember the day as if it were yesterday, right down to crossing a green draw bridge - It was a hard green metal and partially see through.  I was afraid it would open while we were crossing and we would all fall into the water, so I wanted to run across.

We went to a restaurant across the bridge and I ordered iced tea, except it wasn't the iced tea I was used to. It was regular tea with ice, served with a lemon.  I thought it was disgusting.

I remember my Grandma and I sitting in the car on the way home and she was playing with me and we were pretending "Doggy" was real and my mom was getting very upset about that fact.  She told me I was too old to be playing that way and to stop.  So I did.

Eventually I stopped playing with Doggy altogether, and then stopped sleeping with Doggy.  I got a pet cat though and it seems my cat replaced my stuffed animal.  He slept on my bed and kept me company.

Today my 4 year old daughter plays with Doggy.  She asked me why I don't have any pictures of Doggy and I when I went to college.  It just seemed obvious to her that I should have taken him as she loves him very much.  Ironically my parents gave me a big teddy bear as a going away present.  I never used it.  I was long past the stuffed animal phase by that point.

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