I turned our photo calendar page today and there were David and Rufus. Actually, to be exact – there was Spare Rufus.
Rufus is David’s favourite. His best friend. He was kindly given to David by a very good friend of mine and I can only thank her that it is a fairly common model. Rufus has a tag on his bottom which is very important for the intricacies of thumb sucking.
Original Rufus has been lost and found at a number of soft play centres but on one occasion, despite personally crawling through all the tunnels and traps for people with larger hips, he was not found. David was devastated. Pippin the cat, purchased in the gift shop on the way out simply did not cut the mustard.
I was able to obtain a new Rufus on a well known online auction website but before he arrived, the soft play centre called. Rufus had emerged from the depths of the ball pool. We told David that daddy had taken Ella (our dog) to sniff him out and she had succeeded. The tears ended, thumb was back in and tag stroking recommenced.
Original Rufus’ tag fell off. The tears were ready, I could see how distraught David was about to become when miraculously the tag was repaired and Spare Rufus stepped up to the plate.
Spare Rufus’ tag didn’t last so long. Maybe the tag stroking had become more frenetic or it was a slightly poorer quality Rufus but I had become an expert Rufus handler. Rufus the third was already in place and ready to go.
David has all the Rufuses now and they carry their names with pride while Rufus 4th sits in my cupboard quietly awaiting his turn.