The Ballad of Dizzy Bear

We have an extra member of our family that you may not know about.

Her name is Dizzy Bear. She’s small and she’s blue and she’s not as fluffy as she used to be.

Dizzy has been Vicki’s stuffed friend of choice for a loooong time. I bought it for her in Washington, D.C. when she was 19 months old. We’re not sure where the name Dizzy came from (D.C., maybe? Who knows how the mind of a not-quite-two-year-old works.) When she was younger, Dizzy went everywhere she did. To the store, to church, to Grandma’s house. She went hiking...

See her?  It's like Where's Waldo.  She's "helping" her climb the rocks.

...and camping...

When your 4-year-old daughter allows you the privilege and honor of posing for a photograph with The Bear, how can you possibly say no?

...and she even made it into our family picture one year.  She hung on the wall with us for a very long time.

Once she got lost in Wal-Mart. It was pretty traumatic. We got her back the next day (apparently she made some friends in the toy department and decided to hang out for a while until an employee realized she didn’t actually belong there and sent her to wait for us in the lost & found. After that, Dizzy had to stay in the car when we went into stores.

One day, not long after Vicki’s third birthday, I took the girls to McDonald’s while Chris was working late at school, and Dizzy sneaked in. And was kidnapped by some strange man. I kid you not. When we ran back in from the car to search for her, other parents in the play area told us they had seen a man in the regular dining area with a bear that fit Dizzy’s description to a T. But by then the man was gone and so was our beloved Dizzy Bear.

We lived without her for three weeks. Vicki cried. I cried. It was devastating for all of us. The people at McDonald’s got really sick of me calling them to ask if a little blue Beanie Baby-like bear had turned up. They just didn’t understand. We needed our Dizzy.

Looking back I can’t believe we actually did what we did next, but that little bear had personality. We searched the internet for a new Dizzy. I must have Googled every possibility: “Washington DC stuffed bear”, “souvenirs Washington DC bear”, “Washington DC teddy bear”, “50 states bears Washington DC”, “please, dear Lord, just let me find this bear”. We were beginning to give up hope, and to this day I cannot remember the words or the website where we finally hit the jackpot, but the search result I clicked on right after Chris said, “One last website and we’re done” was the one. We found her! And paid a ridiculous amount (probably three times what I originally paid) to get her back.

And what a joyous day that was.

Of course Vicki knew it wasn’t the same bear, but she was happy to have a replacement all the same. Those three weeks were long. She’s been just as well loved as the original, but this one has thankfully stuck with us {although she did have to be rescued from a Barnes & Noble about two months after we got her. You’d think we’d have learned, but no...)

She spent a week at Girl Scout camp last summer.

She still has a place of honor among all of Vicki’s stuffed animals.

And she sleeps on her neck every night.

She may be getting shabby, but, just like the rest of us, she’ll always be a part of the family.