For The Love of a Dog

Moments before embarking on a four-hour-drive to visit family, Claudia narrowly averted a crisis.

"Can you get Wow-Wow, please," she shouted to me from the car.

Without thinking a second thought, I disappeared inside the house and began a quick search in all of the usual places. Inside Daniel's toy work bench. Inside the "trunk" of his tricycle. Upstairs in his room. Den. Kitchen. Our bedroom. Okay, now I'm running out of places Wow-Wow could be.

A sickening feeling entered my mind. I recalled the last time I saw his treasured stuffed dog. It was a few hours earlier in Dick's Sporting Goods right after Daniel had ducked under some merchandise to disappear for a few solitary moments to go poop.

After discovering Daniel's dirty diaper we jetted off to the house and left "man's best friend" behind. I quickly accepted this to be the case. Thankfully, we had replaced Wow-Wow with Wow-Wow 2 only a few weeks earlier and still had the original tucked away in a closet.

I grabbed the original Wow-Wow, who smelled like a real dog; which was the reason it had been replaced in the first place. But, it would do for the weekend during an emergency.

I called Claudia while she was en route to family to let her know I had returned to Dick's Sporting Goods, but no one had turned in Wow-Wow. So, I had already ordered another one from Amazon.com and would have it in a couple of days.

Crisis totally averted. Whew!

We've all been children at some point which means odds are good that we've all had a treasured stuffed animal. For Daniel, it's Wow-Wow.

He has developed a great attachment to the stuffed animal. He plays with it all of the time. His daycare has noted that he sleeps during nap time about an hour longer on the days when Wow-Wow is with him. Wow-Wow eats. Wow-Wow barks and licks your face. In Daniel's world the little doll does just about everything a real dog can do.

Which is why we jump through so many hoops as parents to make sure we don't lose Wow-Wow.

Of course, we still feel more than a little silly after Claudia noticed at her sister's house that Wow-Wow was laying on the bed, and Wow-Wow 2 was snuggled in Daniel's arms. Averted crisis. Well, it never really was one to begin with.