I got home this afternoon to the bestest birthday present ever from my sister!
She sent me my Burbee!! (I promise, if you follow along, this will make sense. Burbee is a long story.)
Last night as I was falling asleep, I realized that perhaps it's a bit odd that I consistently sleep with a teddy bear. Big Bear. I've slept with him.... um.... every night of my life that I haven't slept with someone else. Unless that person was my sister. When we sleep together, Purple Bear (hers) and Big Bear (mine) still get to sleep with us.
Big Bear was a gift from my Crazy Aunt. I haven't spoken to Crazy Aunt in years, but the first thing I ever owned was Big Bear. A gift from her the Christmas before I was born. Big Bear was christened with my third and fourth words (I managed "Mommy" and "Daddy" and then "Big Bear". Shelly's first word was "Toy". Her second word was "Gimme." I think that's all very funny.).
Okay, so I have this teddy bear. Big Bear. He's old and dirty and has endured many amateur sugeries. He used to hang out with Nighty-Night (my blanket), who was also the victim of many amateur surgeries, and is now too threadbare for everyday use. For the record though, on a bad night, Big Bear and I can still sleep pretty comfortably under Nighty-Night. I have no idea where Nighty-Night came from, but I absolutely remember having her as far back as the age of three.
Shelly had a body pillow named Snakey that partnered with Purple Bear for her lounging, napping and other adventures in leisure. Snakey matches the comforters from our first beds that I still happen to have as well. One is actually on my bed. Mom made Snakey out of a sheet. Snakey is still alive and well although I doubt she rides around on him nearly as often as she used to.
Now you have an idea of how my sister and I never let go of our childhood posessions. Surely, I've told you about The Joke Book, but for whatever reason, I can't find it. The short version is that we still share our childhood Joke Book. We mail it to each other periodically, and the subject lines of our e mails are always the beginning of a joke from it.
When we were little, and we took baths, we weren't allowed to have towels in the bathroom with us while we bathed. We were messy bathers. Any towel left in the bathroom would end up dragged into the bathtub and used as a toy. Or splashed on til it was as wet as if we had dragged it into the bathtub.
When we were finished with our bath, we'd yell to mom that we needed towels. Except that we'd always try to spell "towel" when requesting it. Eventually, we gave up and we'd yell "Mommy! Mommy! 'T'-owel 'T'-owel." and Mom would come with the towels.
Generally speaking, we'd let the bathwater out before we started yelling. Which left us cold and wet in the bathtub knowing we were NOT to leave it until someone (Mom) brought us some towels.
This led to a song about the towels that simply went "Brr-bee, brr-bee, brr-rr-rr-bee" to the tune of the theme song from "Pinwheel" about how cold we were.
On the topic of never letting go, Mom would still bring us each our hooded baby towels. Mine was yellow with little bears on it that looked remarkably like Big Bear. We'd put on our towels (on our heads) and run around and sing "The Bur-bee Song".
Somewhere along the way, I stopped using my Bur-bee. I think when I got old enough to bathe alone and there was no song and dance number at the end of bathtime, it lost some of its appeal.
Well, as I have my sister's comforter (as well as my own), she must've somehow ended up with both of the Burbee's. She's even more poor than I am right now and so for my birthday she sent me a funny page from a coloring book all colored in with a message in code (along with a "HINT: It spells "Happy Birthday, Mary!") and my Burbee!
I really did open it and immediately stick it on my head, grab my bear and dance around my (half clean!) room singing The Burbee Song until I cried.
My sister rocks for sending me a piece of my childhood. I wonder how much it would cost to ship her her comforter. Her birthday is next month....
