He’s been part of our family for almost 7 years.

Who knew that an impulsive purchase at a Kay-Bee Toy store at the mall would turn into such a childhood staple for my daughter Drue? Not me!

She was nine months old. When I took the tags off of Elmo, she grabbed him, hugged him, and has been attached and in love ever since.

He earned the prefix "Scratchy" because he's so... Scratchy.

We’ve had a couple major scares with Elmo, where he’s disappeared for sometimes weeks at a time. This year, on my birthday (late December) he disappeared once again. We ran errands all day that day, and although Drue swore she left him at home that morning, the thought of Elmo being run over again and again, by car after car in that slushy mall parking lot started to haunt me. The more time went by, the more I started to think we wouldn’t ever see our “scratchy” Elmo again.

Three months had gone by, and Drue was dealing with Elmo’s absence pretty well. Every now and then she’d burst into tears, but she was surprisingly soothed by my own childhood security bear, Samantha.

My childhood teddy bear, Samantha

Internally, I wasn’t handling it very well. It actually made me sick to think about it.

Yesterday, I went into my son’s room and decided to tackle a hamper filled with mismatched socks, etc. I dumped the hamper out in the hall, started to sort, and HARK! There was Elmo!!! Home alone, I screamed. I got goosebumps and a little choked up, actually.

After the Easter Bunny filled baskets at our house, I decided a great way to tell Drue about my find was to hide him at the bottom of her basket.

When I brought the kids home from their weekend at their Dad’s house, they went through the baskets. The look on her face, accompanied by three shrill screams and the statement “Thank you, oh THANK YOU, Easter Bunny, for finding my Elmo! This is the best thing in my basket! This is the best day EVER!” was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Welcome home, buddy!

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