Posted in Pictures

For Christmas when I was 12, my dad got me a huge present, which sat wrapped under the tree for several weeks.  I was so curious what it was! It was the first thing I opened on Christmas morning - it was a life-size panda stuffed animal! My dad really likes pandas, and I really like stuffed animals, so I suspect he actually wanted it for himself, but justified it by buying it for me.  Every day as he drove to his office, he passed a toy store that had this panda sitting in the window.  Finally, one day he decided to stop and buy it.

I played around with the panda by posing it for pictures. I have one of it driving my mom's car, waving as it zooms off. I have another of it playing the piano, another of it reading the newspaper (the headline is "Mahres strike twice in slalom!" which was from the 1984 Winter Olympics), and another of it sunning itself on a lounge chair in the yard. When we had our house painted, I overheard one of the guys ask my dad how much it cost, and he said, "$100." I was so shocked that my dad spent $100 on a stuffed panda!!

Skip ahead nearly 20 years, and I happened to be Christmas shopping for Mary, and I saw a mama panda (NOT lifesize!) with a baby panda. They were so soft, with leathery pads on their paws. They were adorable! I guess I really wanted them for myself, but I bought them for Mary (do you sense a multigenerational trend here?). She, however, was totally uninterested in Mama and Baby.

A few months ago, I was considering throwing away my life-size panda because he is huge and really, what is the point of having a life-size panda? He was in the corner of my bedroom along with the mama and baby. I had to move them when we did a huge bookcase switcharound, because one of the bookcases was going there. 

However, Ryan came in my room, saw the pandas and immediately christened them the Panda family, with Daddy Panda, Mama Panda, and Baby Panda. For several days, he made us carry our respective pandas around: my husband the Daddy Panda, me the Mama Panda, and him the Baby. Whatever room we were in, our panda had to be also. I have taken the Mama Panda with me when I go out numerous times. He sleeps with the baby panda, and sometimes with the parents too.

Of course, as soon as Ryan expressed an interest in the pandas, Mary started saying, "Ryan, they are MY pandas!" but I nipped that in the bud. "For 5 years," I told her, "you have completely ignored those pandas, so they are no longer yours. They are now his!"

His latest issue of Your Big Backyard had a poster of a mama panda and a baby panda, so that is now hanging over his bed. He REALLY wants to go see pandas in person! When I showed him a video clip of baby pandas, he watched like 20 times in a row and started asking if we could go see them. Try explaining to a 3 year old that those pandas are in CHINA, which is REALLY far away! Sometime I will have to take him to Washington, DC, to see those pandas.

I think that it is a way of helping him to feel special. His life was really changed by the twins being born when he had only just turned 2. He can feel like the only baby of the panda parents. And I won't be throwing out Daddy Panda anytime soon!!