Puppy

Andrew has two blankets that he likes to sleep with, Mary McLean has her "beets" (blanket) and her thumb that she can't go to sleep without....Emma has a puppy. We got puppy on one of our trips to Target one weekend when Emma was probably only 5 or 6 months old. We were buying the other two something small, and felt we should get her something as well, even though she wasn't really playing with "toys" at that point. Mary McLean had picked out a little brown stuffed dog, and since they were only $5 we got a white and gray one for Emma. Lately she has grown really attached to "puppy" as we named him...Mary McLean's just got thrown in the toy bag with all her other forgotten animals. She will carry it all over the house crawling around, and likes to give puppy "loves." A little over a week ago we went to BJ's to get some things and Emma had puppy with her. After we had checked out and we were pushing our carts of things away from the chashier, I noticed that we no longer had puppy with us. I looked at Marc thinking maybe he had seen her drop it and put it in his cart, but unfortunately not. I left him at the front of the store, while I raced up and down the aisles looking for our little lost puppy. I know that Emma is not even a year old, and would more than likely never remember puppy, but being a 3rd child, so many things are handed down to her, that this was one thing she had gotten new, and really seemed to like! I couldn't find puppy on any of the aisles we had been down, so I went back to the front to customer service to see if MAYBE someone had turned in puppy. Unfortunately no one had, but the nice lady took my name and number and said if it turned up she would give us a call. I felt awful for Emma, so I made Marc take us back to Target with my fingers crossed that we could find another puppy. As we were leaving BJ's, Mary Mac looked at Emma and said, "Aww, it's o-tay Emma, you can have my puppy." "Can Emma have my brown puppy, Mommy?" It moved me to tears to hear how sweet she was being. She was really concerned that Emma had lost her beloved puppy. We got to Target and I start digging through the stuffed animal bins and couldn't find a white and gray puppy like Emma's. I found a black one, and a brown one like Mary McLean's, but no white and gray one. I was about to give up and I lifted one last giant stuffed animal to see if there was anything hiding underneath, and there he was. A white and gray puppy, identical to the one we had just lost. I pulled it out and showed Emma, she got the biggest smile on her face and started laughing and bouncing up and down. Now we have Puppy II living at our house.
Last Monday, I got a call from BJ's saying someone had found the other puppy and it would be waiting at customer service. We reunited Emma with Puppy I on Wednesday. I can't believe we were lucky enough to find an identical puppy for her, or that someone found the original and turned it back in! Thank you to whoever found the lost puppy and turned him into customer service, and thank you to the nice people at BJ's for keeping my name and number and calling me when it was turned in! You made one little girl VERY happy!

Emma and her puppy