Oh, Tiger

I would be remiss to not have a post about Tiger. Clara is very attached to Tiger. Lee has her blankie, but Clara's relationship with Tiger started much much earlier and seems much stronger. She loves Tiger and will not go to sleep without him. When she gets herself to sleep, she lies down , buries her face into him, and kind of moans until she's out. If she's rolling around the floor of the playroom with her face buried in Tiger, we know she's tired.

If she hasn't seen Tiger for a while (we half-heartedly attempt to keep Tiger in the crib during the day so that we don't have to execute the house-wide Search For Tiger before bedtime), she will grab him and just sniff and sniff. Then she starts to chew on his tail, and then she buries her face into him. Of course after a trip through the laundry, there is a bit of consternation at his new fresh scent, but he is soon accepted just like a two-week-old seasoned Tiger.


Tiger has a rattle in his head, so he softly jingles when shaken. This is often how we awaken during the night or in the morning - to the sound of Tiger jingling. We can also track her movements through the house if she's carrying him around.

Clara went through a period where she would throw Tiger out of the crib whenever we put her down. She would stand in the crib and cry, staring at Tiger far below on the floor. Of course this presents a dilemma - do we go back in the room and give her Tiger, thus teaching her that if she throws him out we will come back in the room? We always broke down rather early and went in and put Tiger back into the crib (imagining all the while that we'd be repeating this many times over the next hour or so), but nearly every time, she would immediately lie down, bury her face into Tiger, and go to sleep.