posted
I have this Care Bear that was given to me as an infant. It holds a huge amount of sentimental value to me. I know its a little weird to still be clinging to a childhood toy, but its different in the military. I've always had the bear with me no matter where in the country the Air Force would send me. It's my only link to my real life that I have sometimes.
So last night I came home from a stressful day at work (I had a production of mine being shown at a Wing level event) and my dog comes running down the stairs with my beloved Care Bear dangling from his mouth! I had gotten to it in at a good time, the Care Bear had only lost his ears and tail. My wife came down the stairs and once she saw what had happened she started appologizing profusly for not watching the dog more closely. I felt so stupid when I felt like crying but it was like seeing the remains of a lifetime friend after a bear attack.
I'm still a little traumatized.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow what a coincidence! I caught my son right after he ripped one ear off my husband's childhood puppy yesterday. I told him I could sew it back on, and he tried to be brave, but I could tell he was really hurt. It made me so sad.
Good luck fixing it up! And it's not silly to be sentimental over your bear. Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do you have the missing parts? I would gladly volunteer to sew it up and repair it as much as possible, though I don't know if you wish to be that long without it. The other possiblity while it is being repaired is to put machine washable stuffing in it so that it can be washed in the future. (I can't remember whether Care Bears had washable stuffing in them but a lot of kids toys dont, even though dog toys do.)
posted
Gah Pooka! I've not yet seen my two-year-old doing something like that but I've heard of it. I'm always on the lookout. Kids are dangerous!
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, I did manage to find the missing body parts although they don't really look the same anymore.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, my dog for some reason is very organized. Whatever he plays with he puts in a pile, so all I had to do is find the pile for the day and thats where the parts were.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am still traumatized by the loss of my Care Bear (due to my own stupidity). When I was young, my mom made me a care bear and it was wonderful. In a cleaning fit in my early teenage years, I threw it away (I must have been possessed). I kept the Cabbage Patch girl she made, thank goodness, but I still cry when I think about throwing away my beloved Care Bear.
posted
Don't fall for that "I'm only going to sew it up and give it right back to you" routine! My mother's beloved doll Honeysuckle had a hole in her head. Her dad took Honeysuckle away to get her fixed, over much protest from my mom. Sure enough, she never saw Honeysuckle again. My hair looks almost like Honeysuckle's did (minus the head hole) so every time my mom brushed my hair she thought of her beloved doll who had been tragically wrested from out of her loving grasp. We still say of anything that is taken to be fixed and never returned that it has been "honeysuckled".
[ February 11, 2004, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well it would take a while simply because he would have to mail it to me. However my specialty is mending odd things. I used to sew up the swimsuits on the swimteam after they got torn playing water polo, if it was someone's favorite suit. I've done other odd mending projects too, and I find them far more satisfying sometimes than fixing something new.
posted
Oh how I'd love to be able to trust you, AJ. You seem so sincere... so kindly... so able (I can't mend anything at all). But do you really understand how very precious a person's Care Bear can be? Can anyone ever really understand?
It was a very kind and generous offer. You are sweet to do that. But how could he trust his Care Bear to the mails, even, or to UPS? Don't let it out of your hands, Scott! History teaches us this is a very dangerous thing to do!
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Aww. that's so sweet. Which care bear was it? I wish I had some of my old stuff animals like some ratty racoon like creature I called Poppy and dragged around everywhere. But sadly I left it in Alabama when I moved to NY. I wonder if she even knows where it is... (my mother) *feels nostalgic now*
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
First of all, I don't like Care Bears. I wasn't ever into stuffed animals. I always had a security blanket. Proper care and maintenance of a Security Blanket is going to be my landmark topic whenever I get around to writing it.
Secondly, having had several canines of my own I am fairly good at repairing canine damage, even if it is impossible to re-weave the fabric.
posted
Childhood toys are such a treasure...I have trouble parting with many of the things that are near and dear to my heart..see I have a tendency to only attach myself to certain things but once I do no matter what happens to them I cannot get rid of them...my favorite is a sleeping beauty snow globe that my mom bought for me when I was real little (sleeping beauty is my favorite Disney movie...I even wanted to change my name to Aurora for a long time ).. But a few months ago my younger sister was in my room messing with my stuff and broke it ... I was devastated...I refused to jut throw it away even though it was broken into a ton of pieces...my mom tried to find me another one but there are none to be found anywhere ...my sister tried to make it up to me by getting a different sleeping beauty snow globe, but it's just not the same even though it did help to make me less angry..
Posts: 68 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My poor wife had a small Shamu stuffed animal as a young girl. apparently she took the dumb thing everywhere. I've heard stories of returing to parking lots and stores at rediculous hours to retrieve it. Well, 25 years later all she has left of the whale is it's small black tail. She calls it her "whales tail" and won't sleep without it. There have been nights where I have had to strip the entire bed before I could sleep because she was flipping out looking for it. Actually she spent the last year or so with it in her drawer, probably because of the awful time I gave her about it being silly. But now that we are seperated I've noticed that she has the stupid thing under her pillow again. i think it is just a comfort to have something like that. It reminds her of a time when she was happy, before her parents divorced and her grandmother passed away, both of which were huge tramatic moments in her life.
Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's the sleepy Care Bear(I can't remember its name). He had eyelids that half-way covered his eyes but were torn off somehow when I was a kid. It adds a bit of character.
AJ, I would love to have you fix it but, as was mentioned, the mail system isn't quite as reliable as I would like. The only way I would like to get it to you is to physically take it to you. However I'd have to drive across about five states to get to you. Let me do some more research.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's Bed Time Bear or maybee Night Time Bear. Care bears are making a huge come back right now, as well as many other 80's toys (rainbow Bright, My little ponies, Strawberry Shortcake), of course I know all this because I have two little girls and our house is full of memories from my own child hood but all slightly off. My wife is the one that is really angry about this. They have taken all of her favorite toys and given them all makeovers. She gets mad because "there just not the same" and "I want my kids to see the real toys not these stupid knock offs." It's actually kind of funny now that I think about it.
Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have a beanie baby I used to take everywhere with me. He hated traveling, though. He would peek out of my pack and glare at everyone and make friends for me. He got these terrible abandonment phobias, eventually, being very afraid I was going to forget him in some hotel room, and so he finally started hiding whenever he saw me packing for a trip, and simply refused to go. So now he stays home on my bed while I'm gone. But that's the way he feels safer so that's okay with me. He's got all his friends there with him to keep him company while I'm away. I sleep with about a dozen stuffed animals, mostly beanie babies, plus one or two cats.
I sent another one, the racoon, to Paul in Iraq. I wonder if he is okay, I was very scared for him going into a war zone like that. He looked so forlorn in the box with the books and things, as I was packing him, but he was very courageous, too, and did want to go be with Paul. I hope Paul took good care of him, that they took good care of each other.
[ February 11, 2004, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
When my niece was little, she found Tatiana and Vanya (a siberian tiger mom and her kitten) in my car and asked if she could keep them for a while. I said yes, please do, because they were lonely out there in my car and you know how if you don't love them they turn back into ....
And she said, "yeah, Stuffed"
I realized then that this is universal knowledge. That by loving a stuffed animal you make it a real person, and abandoning it will eventually turn it back into nothing more than fabric and stuffing. How is it that we all understand this? Are we doing the same trick the hive queen does when she calls up a new aiua to dwell in the new queen's body? Would a being with such a limited body, only buttons for eyes and no nervous system or brain or inner complexity, be the most severely handicapped person that could exist?
Or perhaps everything of lesser importance about their existence is merely stripped away, and they are left with the raw form of the only thing that matters, love? Maybe it's a sort of hermitage where souls can be at peace and experience love in its purest form, undistracted by all the extraneous accoutrements of embodiment?
If you could come back as a stuffed animal, would you?
[ February 11, 2004, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
I bought a little beanie Giraffe at the library for one dollar. he's so cute... I named him Apfelkuchen (which my German friend thought was funny.) If I put Edward on him (edward's my glasses cloth and she's black) then he looks so adorable. I take him to work and toss him in the air and catch him and sit him down to look cute and make the time go by faster by making me laugh.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I remember a Care Bears activity menu at Pizza Hut in the late 80's. My boyfriend colored it tie dye style and filled in the puzzle: h-i-p-p–i-e bear is s-t-o-n-e-d Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have so many of my childhood toys still. I'm a total packrat and sentimental to the extreme. I have almost every doll or stuffed toy that ever really meant anything to me. My poor abused Teddy Bear has had eyes, nose, and bowtie replaced, and has had stuffed seams mended many a time. I don't think he's been washed, but I do remember one lice quarantine. I still sleep with it - I just find it more comfortable.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Another odd trait many hatrackers seem to have in common. We sleep with stuffed animals. This is bizarre. We found out over the years that many of us are pyros and love to burn things, that lots of us like going barefoot, and singing out loud in public places like parking decks (my favorite) or while swinging in the rain (Toretha) or wherever. This is weird! There really is a gene for hatrackerness, I think!
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Does anyone else like to ride their grocery cart in the parking lot? That's so much fun. To get running real fast and then stand on the bottom strut and see how far it will go. They don't steer very well, though. I just wondered cause it's something I do all the time that seems like it might be another hatracker genetic trait. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Whoa..I ride the shopping cart still, and I sleep with stuffed animals...four, in fact. I think you're right, they really become...alive. I don't have four stuffed animals, I have Rocky, Bingo, Ginger, and Sheriff. Not to mention the probably...30-40 that have been on my bed sometime during the last 16 years.
How do you find yours? Me...I just see one, and I know. It's one shot, and I'm hooked. Well...I can resist if it's just a look. But if I pick up, and a personality is there, oy vey. I'm done, might as well not even try to fight it.
Posts: 3658 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
THe stuffed animals that I sleep with now aren't ones from my childhood, mostly cause i'm scared of losing those and not having them for my kids, amd cause a lot of them are too small for me to curl up with any more.
I have as many of my childhood toys and books as I could save from my evil stepmother, including a LARGE collection of barbies and breyer horses with missing limbs, and some suspiciously burned barbie houses.
At school I have the moose ken got me for christmas, and at home I have a polar bear my best friend gave me a LOOOOOONG time ago. THe moose's name is Pop for obvious reasons, and the bear is named Bear, cause I never got around to naming him.
posted
ak: I do the shopping cart thing. I think you mentioned that you do that in a thread I started a long while ago. Heck, when I'm back home in Hawaii, me and my friends get ice cream and sit in shopping carts in the middle of empty store parking lots after midnight.
I'm a pack-rat too. I have a little duckie perched on my bookshelf right next to my bed. He doesn't say much, and he's kind of an odd little fellow, but he's a good friend.
posted
I'm really sorry, but I was reminded of this which was mentioned during one of the Xmas threads. I promise I wouldn't want your mended care bear to look more like this afterwards, but I really think they'rekindacute.
posted
I bet ice cream eaten while you and your friends are sitting in grocery carts in the middle of store parking lots after midnight tastes really good! I would like to try that. Maybe we should do that at the next hatrack picnic.
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sometimes I've gone grocery shopping while sitting in the cart and having a friend (Beca, who posts here) push me around. I get funny looks, of course.
Also, when I'm waiting for people to finish their grocery shopping (I give rides), I'll sit in the cart near the entrance. It's not my fault they have benches all the way in the corner. Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mom was going to sell my Care Bear at our last garage sale! I couldn't let him go, though. So now he sits in my old bedroom, which is now my nephew's bedroom when he visits my parents. He's the brown bear with the big red heart on his belly. I love him so much, even though I can't remember his name! He sits on the little wooden chair my uncle Bill made for me.
I also rescued my Nestle Quick Bunny - the first thing I ever won! Couldn't let it go. He's sitting on my old bed now.
On my current bed sits Chester, my lovely teddy bear that my aunt and uncle (who are also my godparents) gave to me in a college kit for my HS graduation. I love Chester - he has helped me through many a tough night (and morning, and afternoon...). He sleeps in the bed with us, beween our pillows. The kitten likes to curl up in his lap.
I also have in my bedroom, on the bookshelf, my little lamb, Curious. She is older than me - a baby shower gift. She wears a bright pink bow tied to one ear, from a Jem doll or something, and a blanket for her when I was about seven. It's not a very good blanket, and I don't really like florescent pink any more, but I'd never take either away from her. She's such a sweet little lamb - and has also been quite a comfort to me in tough times.
There is no love in the world like the love a stuffed animal can give you.
Posts: 2661 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I kept the Cabbage Patch girl she made, thank goodness, but I still cry when I think about throwing away my beloved Care Bear.![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
AK ![[Taunt]](graemlins/taunt.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
