Bye Bye Bear; Hello Dragon!

The bear toy Sam brought home way back on July 24th has finally died. At 7 weeks, it had the longest life span of any of Sam's soft toys (the plastic ones have a slightly higher life expectancy). Sam had torn off the bear's ears, tail, nose, and eyes, somehow turned him inside out, and removed all five squeakers from their little mesh bags by the time we decided to send Bear to the big toy box in the sky. There is one upside to Bear's demise, though--Sam gets a Petsmart trip to pick out a new one!

Sam is still not allowed to pick out plush toys because he goes through them way too fast and eats the stuffing. He likes the feel of soft toys, though, which relegates his choices to either fleece toys, or toys like Bear that are all pelt and no filling. So what does Sammy pick out this time? Introducing... Dragon!

Sam with Dragon

Dragon is like Bear: a big skin. Unlike Bear, though, who had only a paltry five squeakers, Dragon has (drumroll please)............ SIXTEEN squeakers.

"This my Dragon!"

Yes. Sam picked out the toy with the highest squeak density in the entire store. Dragon's body is entirely made of squeakers; eight pairs of squeaker "scales" with felt dorsal spikes running down the middle. I let Sam carry his new toy up to the register and give it to the cashier himself, and everyone we passed in the store thought that was the cutest thing. "Did he pick out his own toy? Awww!" Of course he picked out his own toy! I'd like to see you walk Sam down a toy aisle and not have him emerge with some stolen plaything in tow. I basically just approve Sam's choice; he does the rest without any urging from me.

Hopefully Dragon will live as long as Bear did. He's a good two and a half feet long, so maybe his size will help him survive. We'll see!