27th October 2012
I don’t recall when the love affair started, but it’s so
sweet to see Claire babying Eeyore. Just this morning she woke up and she said
: “Mummy, I had a dream.” And I said : “What did you dream about?”
And she said : “I had a dream about Eeyore. And Eeyore was
dreaming about me, his mama.” Awwww… so sweet.
She’s now got a little cardboard box cover turned upside
down that she uses for Eeyore’s bed and some towels for linen and some doll
accessories for a blanket and pillow for Eeyore to sleep in and he sleeps on
top of the bedside table that is just next to her little mattress bed on the
floor and she likes to pretend that Eeyore is in the top bunk bed and she is on
the bottom bunk bed.
She carries him to bed with her at night and wakes up
looking for him in the morning. Eeyore’s little pink ribbon fell off his tail
the other day and she was visibly upset. I didn’t have time that morning to sew
it back on, so we put a little red ribboned hairclip on his tail and she was
satisfied with that for the rest of the day. That night, I secretly snuck him
out of his little cardboard box bed while she was sleeping and brushed off my rusty sewing skills
to fix the little pink ribbon back on his tail. He was brave and didn’t squeak
one bit. Eeyore getting his tail mended.
It’s so cute too to see her reflect, in the way she treats
Eeyore, the way that I mummy her. She likes to ask me to help Eeyore cry for her when she
pretends to leave him. So I oblige with a high-squeaky voice pretending to be
Eeyore and I whine : “Come back Mama!”. I guess that where Claire is concerned,
I have become the voice for Eeyore.
The sweetest thing is to see her nursing Eeyore. She’ll
sometimes tell him, just as I’ve told her, “not now, Eeyore, later when we get
home.” Or sometimes she’ll ask him : “Eeyore, do you want the other side?”
Oftentimes, she has asked to bring Eeyore to school with
her, but the preschool doesn’t allow the kids to bring toys from home with them
to school. So Eeyore shares the ride with her in the carseat and has to sit
patiently in the car, as she tells him : “Eeyore, I’m going to school. You stay
here and wait for me. When I come back, I’ll give you a hug and a kiss, o.k?”
So oftentimes, in Claire’s pretend world, Eeyore IS Claire
and Claire is Me.