Little Bear was the very first "baby" thing I bought after finding out we were pregnant with Owen. I traveled with Chris to Stockholm Sweden in June of 2012 for a chemistry conference where he had an opportunity to present some of his research. I was about 7 weeks pregnant. One day while Chris was busy at the conference, I took the bus to the world's first Ikea just outside of Stockholm. I spent much of the day perusing & dining on Swedish meatballs & ligonberry sauce...yum!
Although I spent hours there, I made only 2 purchases-a unique shaped coffee mug & this bear.
Fast forward months later...we found out that our little one was indeed & boy, moved, & began decorating Owen's nursery. I found a sweet little place for this little bear on a wall shelf. I propped him next to some wooden blocks & loved the way he looked there.
When Owen was nearing a year old, I happened to take the little bear down for him to see & hold. There appeared to be no immediate connection until about six months ago. Chris & I had been calling him "Little Bear" & Owen adopted that name. Then Little Bear became an even better friend when Owen parted ways with his "binky" in September. Prior to that, Little Bear was mostly a friend to cuddle with for naps and at bedtime. Suddenly Little Bear was showing up everywhere.
Fast forward again to this past Thursday...Owen & I ventured to Kohl's with our 30% off our total purchase coupon in hand in an effort to finish our Christmas shopping. Little Bear usually makes car trips with us but is not routinely allowed in stores. However, Owen was tired, mommy was tired, & he was not thrilled with the prospect of riding in the stroller without his bear friend. I caved & let Little Bear come along for the shopping trip. We had several things in various departments to scope out, so we covered a lot of territory before I realized that Little Bear was no where to be found. After retracing our steps multiple times, I proceeded to the Customer Service counter to report Little Bear missing.
It is quite possible that the Kohl's Customer Service representative deemed me crazy as I described the missing bear as if he was my own child..."He's about 6 inches, tan color with brown eyes, a little blue & white striped jumper with a heart in the middle. He looks old & loved on." I jotted my name & number on on a piece of paper and nearly begged her to please help me find him.
We returned to the car-Owen asking for Little Bear & me feeling defeated & nearly in tears. At a loss, I prayed simply for God to help someone find Little Bear & return him to his sweet little rightful owner.
I shared the sad news with Chris & knew we had to move on. After asking multiple times, I decided to tell Owen that Little Bear hard more shopping to do at Kohl's & we would hopefully be able to see him soon. Meanwhile, Chris was making plans to get a new bear here ASAP. Getting an "extra" bear had been on our to-do list for a while, but they're not available online at IKEA meaning we would have to make a trip to the store. The closest IKEA is in Atlanta, but there was simply not time at Thanksgiving to go. Chris talked to his sister who happened to be downtown that day. She was so kind to head to IKEA & get us some more bears. My sweet parents arranged to get the bears from my sister-in-law Friday before they made the trip here for an already planned visit. I was somewhat relieved to know that at least a "new" Little Bear was headed our way, but was still sad to know that it would never be that sweet little bear that I brought home from Stockholm.
At 10:15 p.m. Thursday evening, I got a call from a wonderfully excited Kohl's employee who told me that Little Bear had been found!!! To say that I was overjoyed would have been an understatement. It was in fact an answered prayer.
We returned to Kohl's Friday morning to bring Little Bear back home. His sweet little owner was so elated to see his bear friend & this mommy is so thankful that Little Bear is back home.
P.S. Little Bear now has another "bear friend" but he'll definitely never be the favorite and the "real" Little Bear will not be allowed to make any more shopping trips again!
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