Confession

I am 36 and I still sleep with stuffed animals. Well mostly just the one. There it feels good to get that off my chest.

When I was a child, one year for Christmas, my parents got me a beautiful big snow leopard stuffed animal. I loved him. When we moved from California to Georgia when I was 14 years old, snow leopard came with me. When I went away to college and got on that plane all by myself, snow leopard came with me. Having snow leopard to snuggle with the whole flight made it easier for me to leave my home and family for the unknown future ahead. I am sure it looked weird to have an 18 year old girl on a plane with a snow leopard, but thankfully I have a little bit of a baby face and so I think I got away with it. (A creepy young man with a tongue fetish who was going to Vegas tried to hold snow leopard for a minute and I had to quickly swipe it back. That was a low moment for snow leopard.)

Throughout my two years in Utah at Brigham Young University, I slept with and kept snow leopard close by. He is the perfect size body pillow before body pillows were a thing. Over the years he has provided me a lot of comfort and is a constant in my world of change. Whenever I needed to snuggle and was sad, he has been there for me.

As soon as I got married, my husband replaced snow leopard in the bed. Still, I never got rid of him and would occasionally snuggle with snow leopard when I read. Then I started to have kids and they started to grow up. They sometimes play with snow leopard. Every once in a while they even want to sleep with him and as long as John is home, I have no problem sharing. It is a lot harder to share snow leopard when John is not home, though.

This last year our family was able to go to Disney World and have a wonderful vacation. Reese and John picked out a baby snow leopard for me at Animal Kingdom so that my big snow leopard would have a friend. Baby snow leopard is soft and perfect and I am very grateful for the gift.

Now that John is deploying, I curl up with both my snow leopards every night. One for a body pillow and the other for my arms. Somehow it is less lonely in the bed and I am always reminded of the beautiful people in my life. So thank you mom and dad for that wonderful Christmas gift. I don't think either one of us knew how important it would be in my life. Thank you Reese and my love, John.