Throwback Thursday: Theodore

When I was a little girl, around 2-3 years old, my mom gave me a CareBear.  She didn't just give me a CareBear, she also gave one to my two best friends at the time- Ilana and Janine.  I sure wish that in all the photos I've been sorting I could find one of the three of us with our bears... maybe...

I present to you, Theodore:

Quite possibly my best and oldest friend.  That's right, he still sleeps on my bed at night.  He became named Theodore when we were in London on my sisters Bat Mitzvah trip.  I remember thinking that calling him Teddy (which was his name until that point) just wasn't a name enough.  He needed to be something more sophisticated, something better.  So, Theodore.

He's amazing. He survived a dog attack (thank you Becky Wilson!), being kidnapped from my bed at camp and soccer overnights.  He's still here through boyfriends, roommates, kids and everything in between. He's never been judgmental, or cruel.  He's always there for a hug.

My husband says I only have two settings- barnacle or golden retriever.  Theodore doesn't mind.  He doesn't have any hair on top of his head because I chewed it all off between the ages of 3-5.  He's just about bald, but unlike Working Dad, he doesn't mind his receding hairline.

When my mom died and I thought I couldn't ever sleep again, he brought me comfort.  When there seems to be no one else to turn to, no one who will hold me long enough for all the sobs to leave my body- there is Theodore.

For good or bad, through thick and thin there he has always been for me. The gift of love that my mom passed along.

So this year, since EG is between 2-3 years old and happens to also have two best friends, I thought I would try to pass along the magic of Theodore to her and her friends...

I give you three girls with three purple bears:

These girls have come to mean a lot not only to EG, but also to me and Working Dad.  They were her first friends in daycare, now people with whom our daughter shares playtime, laughs and fun.  I hope that they might be in our lives for a long time.  But mostly, I hope that her teddy bear might become as important to her as mine is to me.

Of course, there is no way to convince EG to love her teddy bear as I have mine- and I'll share with you that of the three, Theodore doesn't happen to be the 'best' loved of the three.  But he is mine, and by giving one to EG, I hope she gains the kinship of teddy bear.  A love that knows no bounds, has no boundaries, and transcends earthly space and time.  I hope that when bad things come her way, as I know they will, she can hug him and hold him, and remember that she is loved and oh so special.

Do you want a special bear to give to a special child in your life?  Happy Holidays- enter below for a chance to win and celebrate the New Year with a new friend.  a Rafflecopter giveaway

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I'll be back on Monday with a review of EG's first time as a Flower girl!

Chronicling the First Year

I've been busily working on EG's baby book in anticipation of Baby #2 coming our way.  Yes, that's right, she's almost two and there are pieces of her first year baby book still missing.  But not that many, I swear.

When EG was gestating I looked high and low for a baby book that would make me happy.  I ended up finding something I thought I wanted on Etsy, but Working Dad thought that almost $100 for a baby book was just too much money.  So I settled and got this one from Pearhead:

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It's cute, and it does the job.  It comes with pages for babies first holidays, and goes through babies fifth birthday.  However, I knew I wouldn't use those extra birthday pages, so I took them out.

It starts out on the right note, with pages for Mommy information, and Daddy information.  Each page is set-up like this, with the writing on the right side and the left side totally open for pictures.  It came with a bunch of corner stickers, that I actually really like for holding the photos.  That means that if you want to, you can take them all out later to copy them, or do something else.  

This is Working Dad's page.  I tried to get photos of us at different ages, one each from our wedding and one each of us with little EG.  Technically at this point in the book, EG hasn't been born yet, but I thought it was sweet to show him and me as a Mommy/Daddy- otherwise we wouldn't have the book at all.

This is the one pager to tell the story of birth- our very first pictures of EG.  It was so easy to write everything out, and put in a few photos.  The layout is really nice.  

This is one of my FAVORITE pages.  Her hands and feet.  It came with this inkless print kit that made it fairly easy and painless to get the prints.  I would be lying if I sad these were baby ones- she was about 3 months old when I finally managed to get to doing this.  Most likely it was right before I went back to work- deadlines like work give me lots of encouragement to get cracking on projects!

One of the main reasons why I bought this book was because it included some of the Jewish Holidays.  Since Working Dad's family is Christian, I needed to have and use both Hanukah and Christmas.   I really liked that they included Hanukah as a standard page.

Unfortunately it wasn't the same for Passover.  Since it's my favorite holiday, I couldn't not have one in here. So I ended up buying two albums for EG, and taking the pages out of one of them to get what I needed/wanted for the album total.  Since the pages are fairly generic (just a holiday title line and a bunch of questions) I could interchange them as needed.  Here I wrote about both our Seder and Easter, then did more pictures on the second side.  I didn't get/take any pictures of our family seder, just the 2nd night we held her first year- our first baby Passover party.

They gave pages of 'Firsts & Favorites" which I used to write commentary about her, what was happening and a monthly note or so about her.  We weren't so great about taking those cute pictures in the same place each month (like Young House Love who did so every Friday!) but I did a fairly good job or writing about everything.  This even goes after her first birthday through February this year, and I'll probably end up going back to the margins to write more as she grows.  That was one of the things I LOVED about Working Dad's baby book- his mom wrote so many cute notes about things he did.  Again I took pages from two albums to get enough to suit my needs.  My mom didn't even make me one... 

Another one of my favorite pages.  There was a single 'letter for you' page in each album, but I made one for each of us.  Here is Working Dad's.  He helped me pick the photos:  EG and him camping, looking over the bluff after our first hike-in.  Daddy Daughter morning hair- nope, not staged, just the reality of morning for both of them.  A sort of scandalous picture in the shower, but it's something that is a sort of fond memory/joke in his parents house that because he was baby #3 he never got a nice bath- it was always "I'm in the shower, hand me the baby."  EG's first time touching the ocean was in the hands of Daddy, and her one year portrait photo session wouldn't have been complete without a ride from Dad.  Working Dad isn't much of a writer, his handwriting is atrocious, so I think he'll end up typing something. No matter, it's the thought that counts!
 

The last part I loved about this is that you can add a slew of pictures to the back of the album.  It's nice to have a lot of the photos from the party we held (Our version of a Sip N' See). 

There are, however, a lot of things that are missing in this version for me.  It doesn't have all the holidays (no 4th of July, certainly no Purim), and it's already getting so full that I feel like if I tried to go through her 5th birthday you wouldn't be able to turn the pages.  So, I'm also working on a Project Life album that I'll be sharing with you sometime later this week or next week.  I've only been working on that one for a few weeks now, but I can say that it's going quick, and so far I love it!

Wow- what a LONG post.  While I wasn't paid, perked or in anyway compensated for this post, I thought that I would share the bounty of what I loved, and get one for one of my readers.  Are you gestating, or just dreaming of a future baby?  Maybe your kid is 5 and you might finally have time to put all the pictures together.  No matter, enter below and I'll announce the winner next week.  Continental USA only.



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