Little Miss Techie and her Gund bears
Parents whose children fall in love with a particular toy know to immediately run out and purchase duplicates “just in case.” But what do you do when that special toy is no longer available in retail or online stores? eBay.
When Little Miss Techie was a baby, she fell in love with a stuffed Gund Bear from our Pottery Barn baby registry who was her constant companion during her sleeping and waking hours. Parental wisdom passed on from fellow parents told us to find the same beloved bear and put it into snuggle rotation so in case of a mishap, she’d never know the difference. Little did we know that soft, fluffy, white bear named Snuffles was a Pottery Barn exclusive and was taken off store shelves and the online store right after she was born.
After scouring the internet with no luck, we added the bear to our eBay Watch List. Entering key words allowed us to receive an email any time someone listed a bear and included 12” Pottery Barn white Gund Snuffles Bear in their title. For months our eBay Watch list emailed us whenever an item was listed that matched our search terms. But alas, none of the Gund bears were Little Miss Techie’s bear.
Until one day. Another email from eBay that looked like the rest but we had to look, just as we did at all the others.
Could it be? The same bear? Indeed it was. Someone was selling the exact same Pottery Barn Gund Bear, new without tags. Coming from a smoke free home, this bear was pristine, white, perfect, and the exact match.
“We want that bear,” I told my husband. “I don’t care how much.”
Luckily for us, no one else seemed to be obsessing about a 12” Pottery Barn white Gund Bear like we were and for $20 or so, the bear was ours.
Finally we had a duplicate of the beloved bear that our daughter loved so dearly and could breathe a sigh of relief from us thanks to eBay and our Watch List.
But as luck would have it, our daughter had established her favorite bear. There was no replacement for him, even after an unfortunate incident where he was torn apart by her grandparents’ Labrador. Instead, our eBay bear became known as Sister Bear. Sister Bear has a special place in her bed among the other stuffed animals and Little Miss Techie talks about how one day, when she has a daughter, Sister Bear will be given to her little girl.
I am sharing this true eBay memory as part of my compensated involvement with the eBay Parent Panel. All opinions are my own.
We did the same thing – my daughter has a woobie that wasn’t available anymore. Although the original was drastically different from the new one, she now calls them Old woobie and New woobie 🙂
I realized this important advice after my guys beloved stuffed dogs had seen its share of illnesses and had been washed many times over. It took alot of internet searching and a kind person willing to let me pay over the phone and ship to me. After the boys went to sleep one night, I removed the dogs and replaced them with the new ones. They were shocked when they woke up. I told them the dogs had gone to the doggie groomers and got their hair done. They thought that was cool and never questioned it!