A bear for my bed

[cosmolinguist]

"I gotta show you something," Dad said, and got up from the sofa so disappeared from the camera. My mom was left looking boggled; she didn't know what he was doing. There didn't seem to be anything in the conversation -- about them decorating their house for Christmas, I think -- to hint even to her what he was thinking of.

He came back quickly, with a big white fuzzy teddy bear. The bear was wearing a blue knitted scarf and something I couldn't quite see on his forehead that might have been ski goggles or earmuffs. Dad was waving a white fuzzy paw at me. It was the cutest damn thing.

He explained about how he saw it in the window of the local secondhand store a few times, and that the bear was asking my dad to bring him home, so one day he just went and bought it. He said it didn't cost much.

"I'm trying to think of a name for him," Dad said. "I'm calling him Bob for now but that isn't quite right." Mom asked if I had an idea for a name, and honestly my mind had immediately gone to Bernard but I think that'd be too fancy for them. Dad mentioned Frank which I like a lot; reminds me of my old pal from a volunteering group who's retired even from that now; a lovely old blind guy called Frank with a guide dog called Ronnie.

Frank, or whatever he's going to be called, lies on what I think of as the guest bed but my parents call "my" bed because they think the guest room is my room. (For a long time, my mom was calling the basically-theoretical bedroom in the as-yet-unfinished basement "Chris's room" which...makes my head hurt just to think about. I think now that the basement is finished it's being called just "the bedroom downstairs," which is a vast improvement.) "Your dad had been wanting to get a bear for your bed for a while," Mom said, which again is a strange sentence.

But Frank is lovely. Even when Dad put him back, his black quarter-zip was covered in fuzz from the bear. It was very cute. It's really heartening that he continues, in his dad way, to just get Ideas in his head and do these little whimsical things that my mom can only humor him in; it's one of the few things my parents don't share.

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

If only they knew you frequently do have a bear in your bed ;)

[otter]

That brought a chuckle :)

[cosmolinguist]

I had this same thought. :)

[sfred]

<3

[otter]

That is a sweet thing. I wonder if it's one of the Dayton's Santa Bears?

[cosmolinguist]

I was surprised that he wanted a bear for me because I already had one of the Daytons Santa Bears! My brother too: mine had a red had and scarf and his was green. I think it said "1986" on the hat, so I would have just turned four then (he'd have been two).

The bear definitely moved to my parents' new house; it was on the bookcase in my room last I saw.

I didn't see anything on this bear identifying it as such, but then my parents don't know how to show me things on their camera so I only saw part of it anyway. :)

[barakta]

That's very sweet and lovely.

I'm thrilled that your

[jesse_the_k]

dad was moved to find a masculine bear for you!

[silveradept]

This seems good. Perhaps a little odd, but I like the idea and the spirit, and having a bear for the bed is a good idea.