Doctor U and the animals

The other day when I came home from work, Don was excited to tell me that he and U had tended to Teddy Bear for hours, with the medical kit he got for his fourth birthday from our friend Sharon.

"He listened to Teddy Bear's heartbeat with the stethoscope," he said, "I looked around through the scope and said, 'Hmm. Yes. I see,' and then Ulysses did the same. Then Ulysses said he had a boo-boo and put the band-aid on his arm." The medical kit has a stiff bracelet sort of band-aid thing.

"Did you take his temperature?"

"Of course!"

Our friend Gigi gave Ulysses the teddy bear years ago, as a birth present. Just recently, he's begun carrying it around, carrying it to bed, asking for "Teddy Bear" by name. It's the first time he's formed an attachment with a stuffed animal as a friend.

Ulysses also made instant friends with his stuffed Boowa and Kwala dolls, characters from the Uptoten.com web site that he loves. We got them as a bonus for signing up for a year's service with the site a couple of months ago; we saved them for a birthday present. He was thrilled to see them -- he smiled and hugged them lovingly when he discovered them in the gold-foil cardboard box I'd put them in. Now they hang out with Teddy Bear, and they all go to bed with him together.

A couple of nights ago, he held Boowa in one hand and Kwala in the other, speaking for them and bobbing them up and down in turn. "Boo ha wa ma ba ba ba?" said Boowa. "Ooh, wah wah! Ooh, wah!" answered Kwala.

When he wakes up in the morning, he totters out from the bedroom carrying them all in his arms. He used to bring a handkerchief with him. And present it to us proudly, as if it were a trophy or some sort. Now it's the trio.

He hugs them in a bundle to his chest and says "Animals!"