Displaced. It's Just So Sad.

Woody has been Micah's best friend for ages. I cannot remember when Micah first fell in love with the cowboy doll, it's been that long ago. I found this picture of the boy while going through albums, and he was 5 years old.

I have quite a few thoughts about this picture. First of all, WHERE THE HECK DID MY BABY GO?! Second, boy-howdy did he really get big. (Also related to the first point, but worth repeating. My very nearly 9 year old now wears size 14/16 shirts. I may have cried when I tried it on him and it fit.) Third, I know I'm the mom and have a bit of a biased opinion, but have you SEEN the cute that boy rocked when he was 5? And last but not least, at age 5, Micah was so attached to Woody that the cowboy made it into a professional photography session.

That particular Woody was the original we bought when Becky was 2, right after the original Toy Story movie came out. It was a Christmas gift that year, and she loved him. In turn, Josh played with Woody, and Luke had a turn dragging him around for a while. But it's safe to say that nobody loved Woody like Micah does.

After that particular Woody got to play with 4 kids, a dog ate his hair and the toe of his boot. (That dog was in Big Deep Trouble. Or would have been if we could have figured out which That Dog it was.) And while Woody was still loved despite his holes, his arm ripped off. I sewed it back, but we realized it was time to replace that cowboy. And that started a long line of successive dolls that didn't have nearly the stamina as the original.

Just before Toy Story 3 came out, we were having a hard time finding Woody dolls as replacements. Ebay was our best friend. We were not as happy as one would think that Toy Story 3 has made the dolls easy to find on the Walmart shelves. Have you seen the prices? Those things are selling for $35-40. It's insanity! Mostly because we know from experience that his boots will break off (not able to be fixed, trust me) in less than a year's time. Sometimes as fast as two months. We can't afford our son's security item slash best friend slash favorite toy.

Enter Black Friday, and the awesome deals they offer to desperate parents like us. They were selling non-talking Woody dolls for $12 each. Micah could care less if his dolls talk, so it was a total win for us. We bought 10. No, I'm not exaggerating. We figured we'd get a year's worth out of that stash, if we were lucky. That was November, 2010. We still have a few in the secret hidden closet. It feels like money in the bank.

Micah has decided that Buzz is his new best friend. Not the talking Buzz whose wings do that WOOSHING sound, but the stuffed one we got Josh at Disney when he was 6 months old. Stuffed Buzz has been sitting in the bottom of a toy box for nearly a decade and a half, but his time to shine has come. Micah hasn't picked up a Woody doll in a few weeks. It's all about Buzz. Buzz goes to church with him, and gets packed to go to Grandma's house. Buzz watches movies with Micah, and gets to have playtime with Jessie. Buzz is quickly snatched and hugged tightly when Luke walks too close to Micah's personal space. Clearly, Buzz is the new security item slash best friend slash favorite toy.

I think we'll be using some new-in-the-box Woody dolls as birthday gifts for upcoming parties. Will teenagers appreciate them?