Once upon a time, there was a boy and his best friend, a blue monkey named “Ah-ah”. For years, they were inseparable, like a real life Woody and Andy. One day, the kindergartner lost his Ah-ah while camping! Now, every mom who has a kid with a lovey can relate to the panic of this situation! (We do have a back up Curious George in our house now). Sadly, the monkey wasn’t found and life moved on. The boy, now a third grader, has probably forgotten about Ah-ah and is much too old to care about silly stuffed animals, right? Wrong. When after three years he sees his beloved sidekick again, he’s overcome with emotion and becomes that wide eyed, attached little boy again.

As moving as that is to witness (especially with a 9 year old son of my own), it isn’t what touched me the most. It’s the mom. Sure, there was a lot of luck involved in her finding his monkey, but the point is she was still looking, three years later. In the choked up moment when she shows her son his long lost love, she becomes the face of all of us moms who have obsessed about, searched for, found or fixed up the things that are special to our kids. It sums up the entire experience of motherhood for me. We go through every heart wrenching feeling our kids do.  And we’ll do anything we can to make them happy, no matter how long it takes.

Do your kids have loveys? Have they ever been lost? 

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