I have a child now. She’s almost two and I finally feel empowered enough to pull out stuff from my childhood, thinking she won’t like, completely destroy it right away. And the first things I went for is these three plush, like, stuffed cats that I have. So, one of them is a little Christmas-themed cat. He’s like a little black cat. He sits on all fours and he’s got a red Christmas hat. And then the other two are like, they’re like more — I guess they look more like Beanie Babies. They’re like bigger and they have — one’s like brown and one’s kind of like blonde. Oh well, I said three, I guess more. I have like, six cat Beanie Babies, like the small Beanie Babies that I had saved forever too. Just because I wanted them. So all these things I saved because I wanted them, and now I’m like, “Oh my God! My child could actually enjoy these.”
So I, I like, went down a huge rabbit hole. I tried to look through all of these doll and toy restoration things. I ended up making friends with a friend of a friend who like, remakes dolls and does stuff with them and so was able to like, give me some tips on how to clean the Beanie Babies. It was like all — it was like a three-day process, like I had to soak them – I think I soaked them in laundry detergent, and then I like, soaked them in — what did I use? I think it was like vinegar or something. Or no, it was baking soda, and then scrubbed them and soaked them again and then I, I let ‘em air dry out in the sun. And then when they were finally, like totally clean, I could give ‘em to the baby. And then the other three plush cats, I haven’t yet.
But it’s like all of them have kind of a story. I’m so excited to see what she does with them already. The Christmas cat, she sleeps with it now. She’ll like — we lay her down for bed and give it to her and she gives it like this big hug. And then she’ll like, tuck it into her blanket and she’ll wake up in the middle of the night and see it and go, “Meow!” And then she falls back asleep. And the Beanie Baby, she likes to like, line them up, or she’ll go get, she’ll go get a mixing bowl out of the kitchen, and then take Beanie Babies, one by one, and put each cat in the bowl. It’s — I don’t know. It’s really fun.
Yeah, I’m just really excited, like already, she’s kind of like taking them going like, “Meow, meow,” making little noises with them. The other day, we were playing a music playlist. An old playlist from this old computer game called RuneScape. And there was this one song that comes up that kind of sounds like a salsa dance. And I’m taking the two kitties and — two of the little Beanie Baby kitties, and making them dance together and our daughter’s just freaking out. She’s like so happy, like laughing so hard at it. And I’m like, I’m trying to make them salsa dance with each other, she’s freaking out, and I’m like, I can’t wait to see what she wants to do with them too.