This is KoKo. He is a stuffed Koala bear that I've had every since I can remember. A few weeks ago, Mike and I were on vacation at my parents house down in South Texas and I was given the assignment to go through a couple of the never-ending boxes of my stuff that resides at my parents' house. Upon salvaging embarrassing Jr. High photos and grade school report cards, I reunited with KoKo. Now, you must understand...I am not a pack rat. So finding something that I have had for so many years was quite a surprise.
I took the little pre-historic "beanie baby" home to put it in the nursery because we have some other things in the nursery from our respective childhood memories. For example, Mike has a picture of a little boy and a stuffed animal and the bottom reads, "Jesus is my Pard'ner". So cute!
Well, before putting KoKo into the nursery (for display purposes only, of course), I decided to throw it in the washing machine. Luckily, I remembered to put it into a laundry bag because probably somewhere mid-spin cycle he busted at the seams and the little granules that made up his stuffing came out. When I pulled him out of the washer it was a little funny and a little scary all at the same time. Going through my mind was, "What did my parents let me play with when I was a child?" I know I had to chew on this thing at some point in my teething years. How unacceptable! But then, it WASN'T unacceptable 30 years ago. I brought myself back to reality and once again grasped hold of the fact that "child safety" regulations are not what they were many years ago.
Basically, the entire process of preparing for baby is somewhat overwhelming. With all of the specialized bottles, pacifiers, chew toys, clothes, sheets....on and on, my head starts to spin. I'm pretty sure I need another masters degree just to operate a car seat and stroller. But then I remember this piece of reality...there have been babies and births since the beginning of time. Mothers seem to know what to do with their babies and they utilize the resources available to make a suitable environment for the precious little one. Surely I can do the same without totally messing things up. Don't panic, we are going to be cautious and read about good baby stuff that's available and not give our baby toys laden with lead paint to chew on. But all the while it's good to have the reality check that our mommies and grandmommies raised us with much more simplistic resources and we turned out just fine. (or so we think we did...) What a fun learning process this will be!
...And for those of you concerned about the current state of KoKo, I was successfully able to re-stuff him with hypo-allergenic stuffing and stiched him up with some sturdy upholstery thread. Good as new...(at least for display purposes only)!
