BE WELL, FRANKEN-MAMA by Gittel Fruma God is speaking to me through the shredded fabric nose of my son’s stuffed bear. The little bear, whom he affectionately dubbed “mama,” became my son’s companion after he abruptly decided he would no longer use his binkie, his pacifier. It fell on the floor at the store and I gave him a new one when we got home. But by then he had already resolved to reject binkies forever. He never took a binkie again. It was shocking because he was the kid who ALWAYS had his binkie in his mouth. I had wondered how I would ever get it away from him. A couple of days after he was all done with the binkie, he got sick for the first time. He was inconsolable, with no means of coping. Then, I got the idea to give him the little bear. It was love at first bite. He started chewing the bear exclusively and refused all teethers. After about a month, I told my mom how attached he had become to the “mama.” Her response struck fear into my heart. “How many of these ‘mamas’ do you have?” Like a madwoman, I hunted down and bought three of the now discontinued bears. I tried to save the mamas and cycle through them evenly, but once teeth started coming in, their little organic cotton noses didn’t stand a chance. About three months ago, I started having to mend them every time they got washed. We cycle through a mama at least every day. You can imagine what the mamas started to look like. In case you can’t, here’s an idea… 14 | M AG A Z I N E N A M E PAGE 3 13
Behold the transformation to Franken-mama. I mended the one on the left with fabric from a sheet. The one on right lost cotton through the hole in its nose and became a very sad bear-pug. When my son found a stray thread on them, he brought them to me repeating “fix mama,” which resulted in some stitching or scissoring to temporarily mend the mama. I decided to try re-stuffing their noses with a sheet. The process of slicing the mama’s actual nose open unsettled me, but it was necessary. As I sat there, using the point of my fabric scissors to stuff pieces of the sheet inside the mama’s nose, I started thinking about the daily lengths I go to for my son. Here I was, performing this procedure on the first of four mamas, thinking about how best to get the job done in an aesthetically pleasing way so my son would be happy with a nose well-sewed. I have spent countless hours chasing after lost mamas, darning their noses, cutting pieces off them as they unravel, and searching for new ones on the internet. Why the obsession with the mamas? Because I want my son to feel comforted, happy, and secure.
