secret op

where i been?

the backstory:
for the better part of this year, mikey has spent a good chunk of his free time reading and rereading his calvin and hobbes comic books.  his reading fluency and comprehension has taken off.  we’ve had a few discussions about calvin’s behavior at times and mikey readily recognizes that while he enjoys calvin’s antics, he doesn’t really want to be just like him.  he’s easily able to identify the ways they are similar and the ways they differ.  i’m super proud of him.

several weeks ago, mikey asked if he could have a hobbes stuffed animal for christmas.  he really liked the idea of having his own hobbes to wrestle with and to sit by him while he reads or builds with legos.  i told him to put it on his wish list and left it at that.  he’s a bit old for stuffed animals and i thought he’d forget about it after a while.  but he didn’t drop it and kept mentioning it.  after searching online, i discovered no merchandise was created because bill watterson chose not to license his characters.  i found a few handmade items, some knock-off tigers, and tiggers in abundance (definitely NOT a believable substitute), but nothing really seemed to fit the bill.  i also happened to find a free pattern that someone had made and posted online.  i printed it out and kept it in the back of my mind.

so i told mikey that they don’t make any hobbes stuffed animals and so it may not be possible to get him one.  but the look on his face and the near tears in his eyes at this news prompted me to tell him to wait til christmas to see if he could maybe still get one after all.

whenever he’d ask, i repeated the “wait til christmas” bit.  juuuust in case.

in case of what?

in case i couldn’t pull it off.

pull off what?

this.

the result of machine- and hand-stitching, many nights working til late o’clock, several finger stabs with the needle, a few do-overs, and all kept top secret.

and pulling an all nighter christmas eve to hand-stitch all the stripes on his back in place.  finishing just as post-call phil walked in the door the next morning.

a labor of love.

and seeing on christmas morning…

that it was all completely worth it.

love you, mikey boy.

ps- but mikey asked me to ask you to please not call it a doll.  😉