Meet Daddy

Moose has quite the imagination.  She is often content to play alone for hours at a time, and will tell me to leave her alone.  I am dreading her teenage years if she continues at this rate.  This past weekend has been a rainy and nasty one in So Cal, so we had to entertain ourselves somehow. Yesterday we had several movie marathons, ran to the store, and had fun. Today she preferred to be left to her own devices, which meant I could read all day without too much disturbance. It was wonderful. Until she dragged this guy out of her closet. 

She received this bear as a holiday gift a few years ago, and the thing is literally bigger than she is. I threw it in the closet about a year ago, since it was only taking up room. Today, she decided the bear had a greater purpose in life.  She decided this bear was now Daddy.  Daddy sat on the couch with her, built a fort with her, and generally was dragged around the house the entire day.  This is a photo of Daddy sitting up to the dinner table.  She's spent most of the afternoon and evening talking to Daddy as if he really were her father.

I'm sure that this is completely normal, but I admit to being a little weirded out by it.  My husband does not look like an oversized stuffed bear.  Nor is he predisposed to wearing scarves.  But whatever makes her happy. I had refused to get her a "Daddy Doll" on the premise that they are extremely creepy and border on voodoo doll status.  Especially the ones with the sound recorders.  Creepy. And incredibly tempting to stick pins into.  A lot of moms swear by them...just not our thing.

I'm hoping that "Daddy" can find his way back into the closet tomorrow. I definitely hope I don't end up dragging this bear everywhere with us. He might be hard to explain in the HOV lane.  "No, officer, I swear I'm not trying to skate through here with a toy posing as my 2nd passenger.  Really, I do have a kid in the back, you just can't see her past 'Daddy's' giant head."  Yeah...no.  Usually, Moose is infatuated or fixated on a new stuffed animal for a few days, then it passes and it is tossed in the toy box with so many other flavor of the week castoffs.  One can hope, right?