Bear-y

Stella has a bear that she sleeps with...well, she has two actually. Brannen sits in the corner of her crib and doesn't get much attention from Stella. Except when we get her up in the morning and ask her "Where's Brannen?" and she crawls over and swats him on the nose (cutest thing ever?). The other bear doesn't really have a name other than "Bear-y". Ok, we got lazy on the name. But he's been around for a long time. He hasn't been with Stella for every night since she's been born but close to it. It's one of those things that you buy a 2nd one of, just in case (and fortunately Jen did just that because the night Stella hurled her guts out, Bear-y needed a trip to the washer and the back up filled in admirably for the night). Anyway, to say Stella is attached to Bear-y is an understatement. It's the first thing she reaches for when we put her down for the night. She's got it down to a science and her right hand will be groping for him before she even hits the mattress. Tonight before bed, when we were playing in her room, she crawled over to her crib and stood up and reached through the slats. I wasn't sure what she was doing but next thing I knew, Bear-y was coming through the slats and out of the crib. It was so adorable to see how she interacts with it, since we don't usually get to experience that. She rubbed her nose against Bear-y and sniffed him repeatedly. Ok, a little weird but nice. Then she put Bear-y down on the floor and laid her head on him. So cute! Anyway, I have a feeling that Bear-y is going to be around for a while, and maybe someday we'll give him a proper name. But for now he's just Bear-y, and we don't know what we would do without him!