Dear Ferret Folks-

When my nephew Alexander was very small I made him some...um...unusual
stuffed animals Well, we are an unusual family. (It was pure hell when
the "Addams Family" movies started coming out. My every day car at that
time was a twenty-one foot long antique Cadillac Fleetwood hearse. The
attention became annoying.)
<http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/sloth/?action=view&current=hearse.jpg>  
I crocheted a giant squid, architeuthis. (His little hands could grab
the tentacles easily.)
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/squid.html
I crocheted the odd and sinister penguin from the writer and
illustrator Edward Gorey's stories, known as either "The Doubtful
Guest" or "Figbash" (A nickname my nephew bears to this day.
<http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/sloth/?action=view&current=doubtful.jpg>

I also made a two-toed Sloth. Not sure why, just a moment of madness.
It has a sort of lost expression.
<http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/auntferret/sloth/?action=view&current=sloth.jpg>
It was really interesting the looks we got when my nephew was wheeled
around in his stroller with one of these stuffies, the squid,
especially.

Well, he is a big boy now. He is almost five, and starts Kindergarten
in the fall. Very kindly, he decided that the Sloth should come to my
house and be my friend, along with his commercially made bright green
Grinch stuffie. For reasons that I cannot possibly explain, Puma,
Princess Toe-Biter wants the Sloth. I mean, she wants it in a bad way.
I used to keep it in the computer room with my nephew's giant leggos
and other toys. Inevitably, I would find that Puma had dragged it from
its perch atop the leggo bucket, across the carpet, and abandoned it at
the edge of the yellow sleeper sofa when she realized that she couldn't
pull it under there. There isn't enough clearance for its belly.

Some days I would find it face down on the carpet, one arm or leg out
of sight beneath the sofa. Other days I would find it face up, and that
really added to its victim hood, somehow. That sad little face...Puma
simply would not leave it alone. Does she admire it? Think it's a kit?
Hate it and want to banish it? I have finally resorted to moving it to
the living room, to the cat's rocking chair, to be precise. She has
left it alone so far. But I have to check every day to see if Puma has
tried to stash it somewhere.

The poor little thing. Perhaps I should buy a potted fig tree from Home
Depot (ManLand, as Wolfy and I call it) for it to hang upside-down from
like the other Sloths. *That* would be a challenge for Princess
Toe-Biter!

What what what does she want with it?

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5936]