Grace has her monkey – her well-loved, cuddled and night time soft toy friend who she holds close at night (as well as many other times of the day). Eli has never really been interested in soft toys, preferring to hold his mom’s hair over taking a soft toy to cuddle, until recently when he did start to want something to cuddle through the night.

Way back, close to when we bought Grace’s monkey, we decided we needed to have a backup in case something happened to monkey and we bought a pig soft toy that is very much like monkey. We call it Oinky, and Eli has decided that Oinky is the perfect night time companion.

A short while ago Donné was struggling to understand what Eli was talking about, with him saying, “Want pink monkey, pink monkey.” I managed to crack the code and figure out that he was looking for Oinky, his “pink monkey.” He clearly sees how his Oinky is like Grace’s monkey – let’s hope that he won’t be quite as attached as Grace is to hers.