Eddie.

Anyone who has known our family personally probably remembers Eddie.

Eddie was the only doll/stuffed animal that Brian has ever had an attachment to. Eddie use to go EVERYWHERE with Brian- it was a nightmare if we ever misplaced him. I even made a scrapbook page dedicated to Eddie. Eddie was a welcome addition to our family at the time because he seemed to help him get over the stage of pulling his own hair out, he'd just twist his fingers up in Eddie's instead.

Then we lost Eddie. I still have no idea where he went. We went without an Eddie for about five months. The first three weeks were awful then he slowly forgot about his Eddie and I decided to not replace it.

Then a donation came into the school where I work and in the pile of toys was an Eddie doll. I remembered the love Brian had for Eddie, and though his attachment to it at times was annoying, I loved that he was attached to anything besides trains at that moment. So I took the new Eddie home with me.

This time Eddie TRIGGERED a new hair-pulling stage. Excited to see Eddie, running his fingers through his hair, somehow made him decide it would be great fun to start pulling his own hair out once again. After I started to see that familiar patch of baldness at the back of Brian's head I took Eddie and stored him away.

We've been cleaning the house, a deep-cleaning, because I have the boys believing Santa doesn't like coming to messy/unorganized homes. We found Eddie tucked way back in the closet. Brian saw him. He hugged him. He's carried him around everywhere today.

I'm sure I'm just asking for trouble but once again my heart just grew watching him love an object and I think I'll allow him to stick around one more time. Hopefully Eddie learned his lesson the last time I took him away and he won't remind Brian of their time spent together pulling hair.