I’ll buy that.

There something else about that whole Webkinz debacle that I didn’t mention in my last post.

(Because who would have kept reading as long as it was anyway?)

Little does London know – and never needs to know I guess –

that at that moment in that overly-lit store, I would have purchased that kid nearly anything she asked for.

Seriously.

And here’s why.

London, my own ever-changing seven-year-old mini-me, held the orange and black stuffed alley cat of her choice up to me

and said, “Look, I have to choose this one – her eyebrows look sad and I think if she comes home with me I can make her eyebrows look happy.”

Which maybe doesn’t explain much.

But wait.

I thought the same thing too.

About twenty-eight years ago.

I remember it specifically – at a Hallmark store in my hometown of Rocky Mount, Virginia.

With my mom.

His name was Boo Boo Bear.

A panda with a bandage around his arm and a tear in his plastic eye.

I told my mom I was sure I could make that tear go away.

I was sure I could make that panda happy.

If he could just come live at my house with me.

And I believed it too.

Just like London does.

I know.

Because that evening as I was tucking her in, she held up the alley cat, now named Sugar and wrapped lovingly in a yellow blanket, and presented the stuffed creature to me.

“See, Momma.  I can already tell she’s changing.  Her eyebrows are looking happier.”

It makes me sigh.

It hurts my heart,

but in a mostly good way,

to be blessed to remember like this.

To remember my mom

and the Hallmark store

and Boo Boo Bear

and a plastic tear

that I believed my love could erase.

To see the undeniable connection

between

me

and

this kid

I call my daughter.