Pea-yo

Last February Patrick and I were shopping at Sears and as we maneuvered through the home department, I noticed a rack of fuzzy, furry pillows. I picked up a round, pink one and shook it at Lauren. She laughed and giggled. I put the pillow down and began to push the cart away when she said "I want it." I told her no, she didn't need it and Patrick said it was cruel to show it to her then tell her no. So we bought the $6 pillow. Lauren was just about to turn two years old at the time and she could talk really well, but she couldn't pronounce some words perfectly just yet and "pillow" was one of them. So the fuzzy ball became known as Pea-yo.

Lauren LOVES Pea-yo and it's funny, if you ask her who gave it to her she says "Daaaad…da" dragging out the first syllable really long to prove a point that Mamma had no part in it.

Pea-yo is about to turn one soon and he's had a hard life during the last 365 days. He's quite well traveled; he's been to Destin, Fort Walton, Panama City as well as many trips to Birmingham.

However, he suffered a horrible accident last spring. Lauren was sick and when she threw up in her bed some of it got on Pea-yo, so I washed him. Not a good idea. You see, when we got Pea-yo I cut off all the tags (including the one that said "spot clean only." Whoops.

Sick Lauren wanted him back because she didn't feel good so I threw him in the dryer on low heat delicate for just a few minutes to speed up the drying process...big mistake. He came out all matted down and even though I combed, brushed and fluffed him he would never again be the fuzzy ball he once was. Lauren didn't care. She still loved him.

Well for the last few months Patrick and I have looked for another Pea-yo both at Sears and online, but we couldn’t find one. It would help if I knew who made him, but again, I cut off those stupid tags so I didn't know the brand. Well a couple of weeks ago Patrick and I were back at Sears and as I looked at baby clothes I told him to run over to the home store just to see if they had any Pea-yos. I finished up shopping and went over to see if he had any success. He sort of did. He found a blue one and an orange one, but no pink ones. So we asked the sales associate if they planned to get more and she said probably not because they'd had those for awhile now. They had been in the back during the Christmas season and they just put them back out to get rid of them.

So we asked Lauren which one she wanted and after much deliberation she chose the blue one. I don't remember poor Pea-yo being this fluffy.

When we got home I again cut the tags off, but I saved them and while Lauren napped I looked online to see if I could find a pink one. No such luck, but it doesn't matter. You see even though she has a nice, new, clean Pea-yo, Lauren still prefers her old one. New Pea-yo gets no love. So I've called off the search because Pea-yo can't be replaced.