"Loose seal! Watch out for loose seal!"

Twenty dollars to the first person who gets that. Come on, Kelly and Monika. I'm counting on you.

I'm still in the process of finding the perfect stuffie for Cordelia. It has to be small, like Patches. Soft, like Patches. With something to hold onto, like Patches' ears. This seal, though sweet, doesn't quite work. And she has a lot of fabulous stuffies, but they're all slightly too big to be in her crib with her at this point. (Cody's crib, on the other hand, is now so full of "buddies" that a few nights ago he woke up crying out, "Daddy! DADDY! Please clear some space for Cody!" because he kept trying to find his pillow and couldn't--it was buried under 15 stuffed animals, and it was too dark for him to make any progress on his own.)

This seal is ok, but not "the one." Right size, and soft, but has plastic protruding whiskers. And nothing to really grab onto. The problem is, the one Cordelia has gravitated to so far is, well, Patches. You can see the problem. Whatever she ends up with, it just can't be a puppy, or Cody will plotz. As he did when he realized he had inadvertently dropped Patches into her carseat:

And just for fun, a postscript:

Buster: A coward? I'm not a coward. Would a coward have THIS? [holds out a stuffed seal]

Lucille: What the hell is that?

Buster: These are my awards, Mother. From Army. The seal is for marksmanship and the gorilla is for sand racing.