Panda

[redbird]

Signs of adulthood, #473: When you're a grownup, you have to repair your own stuffed animals.

I've had this stuffed panda for 30 years, which is a quite respectable age for any panda, biological or stuffed. She's in good shape for her age, but she'd developed rips near the seams of both rear legs. I'd just sort of lived with that, and kept sleeping with one arm around her (it's comforting).

A couple of nights ago, I leaned on her wrong while getting to sleep, and half-detached one ear. Surgery was clearly called for. My mother is a long way away, and it's been a long time since I've asked her to do my sewing. So I did it myself. First the ear, with black thread. Then a break to replace a button on my all-purpose black cardigan, since I had the black thread in the needle anyway.

Then, switch to white thread and fix her legs. Panda was very brave, and didn't complain at all.

This morning, she looks right, and I can no longer see her insides.

Comments

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, I took Mr. Moke, a monkey to The Doll Hospital, but he really needed to be completely restuffed, far beyond my abilities or pain threshold; holding a needle for long hurts.

[firecat]

Awww...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Get well soon, Panda, and congratulations on being brave during your operation.

AM still mends mine.

[redbird]

I passed that on. She remembers you, and I had to promise to bring her to Minicon.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Good job, Doc! :)

My surgery career is intermittent, and usually only involves a procedure that I have perfected--the Radical Squeakectomy--which is usually necessary when the dogs have loved one of their toys to the point of evisceration.

Amusingly, I just noticed that Lee's Art Shop on 57th Street carries replacement squeakers, so if I got up the gumption to try a Squeak Enhancement in the future, I actually could.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I have five soft toys: a gorilla that was bought for me twelve years ago, and a lion bought for me ten years ago: also a mouse, a beanie-baby Vulcan, and a Clanger, all three about the same size, which were all given me more recently. Three out of the five were bought for me by the same person: my nephew gave the mouse to my cats for a Christmas present, back when he was young enough that he didn't understand that it would be a very short-lived Christmas present, and the Clanger was a gift from my sister. I suppose I had soft toys when I was younger, but I don't recall them and certainly don't still own them - what I did own was a set of plastic animals with which I told myself stories. I still have one of the originals. Part of their usefulness as story-subjects was that at one time they were available in any toy shop for pocketmoney, so if I lost one I could simply resurrect it again in another body.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I picked up a tiny stuffed tiger cub from a second-hand store a while back. His head was half-off, and stuffing was leaking through the back of his neck. I repaired him as best I could, then made him a solemn promise that he would never go back to a second-hand store; that, one way or another, I would be responsible for him for the rest of my life, or the rest of his, whichever comes first.

I don't usually love stuffed animals until they need repairing - I'll love one for a while (a year or so is about average), and then retire it for a new critter. This is why my stuffed animal collection keeps growing like crazy. :]

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

There's something really wonderful about a grown woman taking care of her stuffed animals. I think it has to do with still cherishing your childhood while keeping it in perspective as something past, that you've changed enough to take care of the things that meant something to you for so long.

I have a stuffed dinosaur just the perfect shape for cushioning, a sort of humpbacked pyramid wedge you can use to keep yourself balanced when on your side. I've had that dinosaur for... gosh, almost twenty years. Mr. Red is getting a wee bit draggled, though he loves his service to me as night ward. When I was young he sat on my ear while I slept to protect me from the brain worms from Star Trek II, for instance.

But he deserves an honorable retirement. I recently bought a collie dog stuffie about the same size. He's not quite the same perfect shape as Mr. Red, but he's doing really well.

Mr. Red sits on my nightstand and watches over the newbie with a careful shiny black plastic eye. As always.

Congratulations to your panda on her successful surgery! And to her doctor for deft hands and caring heart. :)

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Wahhhhh! OK, now I am highly motivated to go get poor, gutless Pooh (given to me at age two, bigger than I was at that point) out of the mending bin, give him some stuffing, and sew him up. He's languished for too many years.