The bunny underworld

Somewhere out there, is a shadowy group of people who frequent cheap shops and buy up cheap toys that children may, perchance, grow to love.  Juliet has befriended one such toy and we have been sucked into a mysterious eBay underworld of people who seem to just sell "comforters".  I didn't actually know what a comforter was until I started absent mindedly looking for a spare toy for her to snuggle, while Bunny No 1 was in the wash.  Alice has a small gang of toys upon whom she randomly bestows the favour of co-sleeping; more often than not she'll cuddle up to a book.

Juliet, on the other hand, is obsessed with an Asda bunny.  She sucks it to sleep and it gets quite manky, quite quickly - both because of the ferocity of the sucking and because she still has 3 sleeps a day so it gets quite a workout.  No problem, thought I, we even have family members who work at Asda, I'll just get another for washing days.  I'll never either of them fall into the Thames and need a replacement, I thought, smugly.

But no, the shadowy underworld have their own ways.  They are eBay users with 600+ feedback ratings, all related to cheap toys.  They pull them from sale if it looks as though they'll sell for the reserve price; they describe their wares as "lifesavers", they claim to "make sure you don't lose sleep", they exhort you to "buy your child a new best friend or a spare".  "Never be without".  Worse, because the Shadowy ones have bought up all the cheapie toys, most comforters on eBay are now described as "rare" and you can't simply buy a replacement or a spare from Asda yourself.

The Northern grandparents have diligently researched many Asdas and it seems that the Underworld is now our only hope.  I've already bought one and my competitive hackles have me bidding on another before the bunny is disappeared altogether (and sleeps with the fishes?) 

I'm starting to think it would be easier if she sucked her thumb, but am still pleased that we haven't come to that.  Like Alice, she has self weaned from a dummy.  Weaning from bunny, on the other hand, may be a lifelong process.

The sleep of the innocent.