Sidekicks

Have I mentioned Whiskers?  G's sidekick is the stuffed animal rendition of the mousie character in If you Give a Mouse a Cookie.  Whiskers is with G so often that I have a special album for the pair on my Facebook page.  Whiskers has become so famous with my friends that visiting friends have asked to pose with G and Whiskers.  

So when I went for a haircut yesterday, Whiskers watched from a nearby chair.  As Kim cut my hair, she and I talked about snuggly childhood friends. She told me the how her daughter's stuffed BFF was accidentally lost, and I told her about Johnny, the Monchichi style monkey my dad gave me when I was two.  Johnny also had a sad story.  After college, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night to find my graduation-present puppy gnawing Johnny's hands to bits.

Josh and I were dating at the time.  He found a doll repair lady, smuggled Johnny out, and brought him back after "surgery" a new man.  Johnny was a very new man, actually slightly higher on the evolutionary scale.  Doll Lady could not find four-fingered monkey hands like Johnny was born with, so she replaced his hands with proportionally correct human hands.  Instead of a thumb to suck, Johnny's opposable thumb gripped a baby bottle.

I had not realized that my sons had never heard that story.  In the car, G asked, "Is Johnny the monkey with the face like this?"  Then he perfectly imitated the matted doll that sits on a shelf in my curio cabinet.  He asked me questions about Johnny, like what Riley did to his hands, and how Daddy got them fixed, and what an opposable thumb was.  When we got home, both sons wanted to see Johnny in person.  Seconds after I opened the cabinet, G shut the door and announced that Johnny had to stay in there so he could be safe.

This morning, G moved my banana trophy to the curio cabinet.

Johnny sits between the most thoughtful teacher gift I've ever received, the ceramic bowl I made in elementary school, and our cake topper.  Now my trophy resides next to Johnny as well.   

G and I have had several conversations about Johnny today.  Johnny's favorite food is bananas.  Whisker's favorite thing to eat is cookies.  We bet that they'd both love banana cookies.  They also both like milk, but Johnny still drinks his from a bottle.  Whiskers prefers a straw.  Johnny and Whiskers hung out in and by the curio cabinet today, and they said goodnight to each other tonight.  I think that those two will be great friends while Whiskers waits for G to come home from kindergarten this year.  Who knows?  They may even be roomies in a curio cabinet one day.