The Legend of Cocofoosus

Once upon a time, in the little house of young Logan the mean mommy crept into the nether regions of the little house to retrieve a handful of 'baby toys' for the little princess. These toys, young Logan quickly realized, had once been his. In fact one of them, the annoying mooing cow on wheels, had been his favorite.

But all that was ok. He knew he was a big boy now and his little sister, baby Megan, was still just a little tiny girl. He showed her how to work the annoying cow. He tutored her in the art of fishbowl that no longer played music when you stuck your hand in to retrieve the balls. He hugged her. He kissed her. He told her he loved her.

Then he went to bed.

The next morning he awoke with a shout and some tears. "MY BEAR!" he cried out. "MOM! MOMMY! MY FAVORITE BEAR IS MISSING!"

Mommy came running.

"What bear?" she asked, still rubbing some sleep from her eyes. "Honey, what is missing?"

"My bear! My most favorite bear is gone! We lost it on our walk." he cried.

Now Mommy was confused. Logan, you see, never had a favorite bear. He had a hippo he named "Baby", he had a lot of trains and various 'big kid' toys. He had stuffed toys - but none of them, other than that hippo, a favorite, least of all a bear. But instead of questioning the logic of missing a favorite bear he never had, she decided to pursue a different route.

"What walk, Logan. When? Did Daddy take you for a walk yesterday?"

And Logan wailed "No." No, Daddy didn't take him on the fateful walk. Mommy had. They were out with the 'great big stroller' - the bear in tow. They saw garage cans and trucks that day. Logan dropped the bear from the side of the stroller and instead of handing it back to him, Mom tucked it up atop the lid of one of those great big Robocans the garbage truck comes along to "scoop it, lift it, dump it, put it back."

Mommy was confused. Not only was there not a bear that he ever labeled "favorite", she knew for certain that she'd never throw out a bear while they were walking just because it fell off the side of the stroller. She told him this as she climbed into his bed and cuddled him as he wept.

"My Grandma gave him to me," he cried.

As far as Mommy could recall, Grandma had not ever given Logan a teddy bear. Lots of Rescue Heros and trucks. Some trains and Hot Wheels. . . but not ever a bear. Instead of challenging him on that point she instead asked him to describe the bear. It was rapidly becoming clearer to Mommy that Logan had had a nightmare, most likely sparked by the entire "hand-me-down" scenario the afternoon before.

"It was brown and furry and I loved him so much," Logan said as he sniffed and rubbed his now runny nose with the back of his hand.

Mommy sighed and grabbed a tissue. "Should we look for it? I'm positive it didn't get thrown out on a walk sweetheart." And Logan agreed to go on a bear hunt. Before they left Mommy held him close to her and spoke to him in soft tones about what dreams were. "I'm sure this was a just a dream honey, just a very bad dream. I know your bear is around here somewhere."

And Logan cried out "ITS NOT JUST IN MY HEAD! I WANT MY BEAR!"

They hunted in Logan's room, gently removing toys from the basket near his door. Nope. They hunted in the porch - pulling out abandoned stuffed toys from a basket perched high above the floor. Nope. They emptied out the toy box in the living room. Nope. They called for Daddy to retrieve a now awake baby Megan from her crib. Once he did they ventured into Megan's room.

And there it was. There on the floor, in a basket of rarely played with stuffed toys was the little, brown bear of Logan's dream.

"It doesn't want that gold ribbon!" he yelled. "Take it off. Cut off its tags!!" And so Mommy did without making a fuss. Logan has a thing against tags on toys ever since they became Megan's most favorite thing in the world. She didn't tell him that this bear was most likely Megan's. She didn't tell him that it wasn't from Grandma but some unknown origin. She just let it all slide. Megan hardly knew there were "mine and yours" flavor of toys. She hardly paid attention to the stuffed beasts in that basket. It was easier to just put an end to the wild bear hunt by allowing the hostile take over of this item.

Logan sat on the floor cuddling his "most favorite bear" closely. He eyed his sister with caution, but she was too busy beating up on her 'new' rolling cow to notice.

Later in the day Mom asked Logan what the bear's name was. He thought about it for just a minute and then he said with a laugh "Cocofoosus!"

"Co-co-foo-sus?" Mom said slowly. "Can we just call him Coco?"

And Logan agreed.