Last week my niece 22-month-old niece Ellie came to our house for Trick or Treating. She loves my dogs and loves their toys almost as much. It’s hard to deny her anything so when she picked up Waffles favorite stuffed dog, a fluffy, cream creature, and asked to bring it home. It was hard, no impossible, to say “no.”
Waffles has lots of toys and although she favors some, she likes new ones even better, so I was convinced that she wouldn’t miss her doggie too much. Ellie went home with it and life continued as normal.
Tonight, Ellie and her parents swung by again on their way to New York on vacation. Excited to see Ellie, my Mom decided to give her an early Christmas present – ad stuffed, pale peach pig. She placed it on the kitchen table waiting for Ellie to arrive. A few minutes later I heard her call me.
“Don’t mention the pig to Ellie,” she said.
“Why,” I asked.
She motioned to Waffles pen and I looked inside. Waffles was happily curled up with the pig and upon seeing me jumped up with it in her mouth to play! It was precious how excited she was by her find and even if she hadn’t suckled it until it was damp and grimy, it would have been impossible to take it away from her. I certainly couldn’t and besides it seemed like turnabout was fair play – Ellie had taken one of her toys after all.
When Ellie arrived she seemed to care little for Waffles’ wet pig, but she did have a good time playing with a handful of her bone-shaped chew toys. At one point holding one that resembled a baby’s teether to her Mom saying, “This isn’t a baby’s!”
Gretchin agreed. “No, it isn’t,” she said, holding the blue bone out to Ellie. “Whose is it?”
“ELLIE’S!” She declared, gleefully grabbing it in her tiny hand.
And, Waffles who was suckling on her pig, not teething on the bone, didn’t seem to care at all.