baby pooksie

Meet Baby Pooksie. With the possible exception of Terri (can't remember when we met, or even how, though I could guess at that), Baby Pooksie is my oldest friend. He's been around since I was seven. Ella, that means he's older than your daddy. And let me tell you, we've been through a lot.

Baby Pooksie was with me the first time I went to church camp. I didn't know anyone when I got there, but we got through it together. He was with me at every vacation, in fact, and even got left behind in a hotel once (Jackson, MI? Florida? Washington, D.C.?) and had to travel via the US Postal Service to get back home. He's been through a sex-change operation (he was a girl when I got him, wearing an awful pink jumper thing and a Miss America-type sash, but I knew he was a boy inside) and he's had an eye mauled by a rottweiler (bad Sadie!). In fact, he lost both eyes and had to have them replaced, but tells me he doesn't quite like the way he looks anymore with his new eyes. There was a period in his life where he was losing a lot of weight (not pretty; so much yellow stuff(ing) was coming out of his mouth that he was half the size he used to be) and had to have replacement stuff(ing) put in, but now he tells me that he's a bit too fat.

Ah, yes, he's been there for me through it all. He sleeps with me every night when my husband's not around. I think he's jealous of Al, and I know Serena is jealous of him. She always makes me move him to the opposite side of the bed from her. He hates taking baths, though. I don't really blame him. When he takes them, he gets a little dizzy from all the spinning the washing machine does, and then it takes him forever to dry out that fuzzy coat of his (and his insides, which are quite absorbent as well). But the one thing that he hates most of all is being made fun of for his name. People always make crude jokes (referring to bodily waste), and it's gotten to the point that he doesn't tell many people his name--kind-of like Cosmo Kramer. But he puts up with it. After all, he was named by a seven-year-old, one that still loves, cuddles, and depends on him twenty-something (and that's a big something) years later. That's worth all of the teasing.

Don't worry, Baby Pooksie. Thanks for sticking with me, and I'll do the same for you.