Souffle

Several weeks ago I asked Makena what she wanted for Christmas. She said a bear. A few days later I asked her again and received the same answer, a bear. Not realizing what a bad idea this was, I asked her what color bear. She said purple.

Easy enough, right?

I started my Christmas shopping a few weeks ago. I wasn't stressed about finding a purple bear so that remained at the bottom of my list. Whenever I was in a store that carried stuffed animals I'd take a gander. This occurred a few times before I started to realize purple bears aren't as easy to come by as I originally thought.

This past Sunday I had the babysitter come so that Mark and I could go on a date. Realizing the time was slipping we decided to turn this into a purple bear finding expedition. Seven stores later we were still purple bearless. We did, however, find two. The first of which was a little bear in one of those vending machines with the claw--you know, pay $.50 to watch the claw wrap perfectly around the bounty only to have the tentacles slip off like cooked, wet spaghetti. This was at Toy's R Us and the bear was buried deep beneath a zoo of other animals. :) Mark found the manager who was dealing with his own zoo at the customer service counter. There were at least five customers in line with returns--on a Sunday night at 9:30. We decided to continue on--it was an ugly bear anyway.

The next one we found was at Target--it was a Care Bear though. For some reason, I don't like Care Bears. I don't know why. We bought this one just in case, but letting a purple Care Bear be the result of all of our efforts just didn't sit well with me. Nor did it with Mark.

Yesterday he called me from a store in San Francisco. He was back to bear hunting. He called from store number two, still without bear. I started another online search--we had done many of these but never found a bear worthy of the shipping cost.

That was until I tripped across this site: www.800bear.com. Here, I found Souffle. A beautiful, cuddly, purple bear. Shipping was only 1.5 times as much as the cost of the bear--a bargain compared to other websites. I placed my order which included the words/image for a personalized bib. We Love Makena! In the comments section I asked if it would arrive tomorrow? (please). Within seconds I received an email from Bruce indicating that it would. And, that Souffle is now extinct! We bought the last one!

Mark called to tell me that he was in a store with more purple stuffed animals than he has ever seen in his life. He found another purple care bear, but no real bear. He decided to get a purple racoon and a purple skunk to keep Souffle company.

Souffle arrived about 15 minutes ago--he/she/it is safe and sound waiting in his/her/its box until he/she/it can be placed under the tree with love.