Piggy and Sister Piggy

For Sasha's first birthday, Aunt Margot got him a Pillow Pet.  A pillow piggy to be exact.  As you can guess from the name, they are stuffed animals that turn into pillows when you undo a velcro tab.  He loved to stuff his face into it's squishiness (who wouldn't?) when he was younger.

Over time, Piggy has grown in importance and now ranks as Indispensable. We travel no distance without taking Piggy along so that Sashsa can sleep peacefully every night.

Since he was old enough to be unswaddled at night, Sasha will only sleep face down.  This has unfortunate consequences for Piggy: it stinks to high heaven after a couple of nights.  Given our lackadaisical attitude toward laundry, the stench will sometimes transfer to Sasha's hair and face for a not-so-fresh morning.  And to make matters worse, he does not want Piggy washed.  He has cried to see it get tossed in the washing machine.  He has grabbed Piggy out of the laundry basket and put it back in the crib.  He has even started sneaking Piggy out of the laundry pile to avoid an argument from the Moms.

We tried introducing a Ugli doll as a secondary pillow, but it was deemed "not soft" by His Highness.  We tried introducing an actual toddler pillow courtesy of Nana, but it was too puffy to sleep face down on.  So we did the only thing left to do and bought another Piggy.  We were afraid he would reject another one.  But no!  He loves Sister Piggy as much as he loves the original.  They were immediate best friends.  After naptime yesterday, the Piggies ran around the crib looking for mud to wallow in because "pigs love mud."

Here they are together in a photo I took for Margot to show the visible difference love can make.