By Nici Holt Cline
Margot has grown a bit indifferent (only a bit. still rockin’ the obsession with elmo panties.) to elmo and has been toting around this bowling pin-shaped duck for more than a month. It is from her daycare and it was finally gifted to her because none of the other kids had a chance to hold it anyway, nor were they interested. And, then, we lost the duck and I thought, eh, she’ll be fine. And I was wrong. She has had daily mourning sessions over the duck. Mama, where’d ducky go? as the entire household looks under couches and beds, behind doors and outside.
So, I googled ‘bowling pin duck’ and ‘bowling pin stuffed duck’ (got some weird results) and finally hit the jackpot with ‘bowling pin plush animal’. After a Saturday night trip to the fabric store to get some extra special, super soft duck fabric, I sat in my studio late night and made my bug a new duck. I slipped into her room at 11p to place the duck next to her so she’d wake with the surprise and, to my surprise, she woke up. This never happens as Margot sleeps hard. But she was all groggy and trying to figure out what was going on with her crazy, nine-month pregnant mama hovering over her bed clutching a duck. Is this the ducky fairy?, I imagine she was thinking.
And then her little eyeballs focused and she just grabbed that duck and hugged that duck and fell fast asleep. The next morning Margot emerged proudly cradling her duck announcing to the cats and dog and Andy and me, my ducky!
It’s interesting to think on how different my Saturday nights are now compared to, say, a decade ago. How different my Sunday mornings are. Every moment really. How I find such joy in the making of a perfect creature for my daughter to hug, the giddy anticipation of how she’ll react. And how I find even greater joy watching her love life so purely through a plush duck.
Nici Holt Cline is a fourth generation Montanan working on raising a fifth. She writes regularly at dig this chick, a blog about gardening with Montana, growing with a wondrous kid, cooking with impulsive whimsy, sewing with naive courage and some other important observations.
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I stop everything to read Nici’s posts! It is so fantastic to be in her sweet world! Quack
[...] on her own. I wanted, with all of my heart, to give her dinosaur bath toys. I stayed up too late to sew her a plush duck. And when I happened upon an Elmo doll at Goodwill I was giddy like I had discovered a hundred [...]