A boy and his whale

Jake loves whales. Specifically, he loves Shamu. He used to be the proud owner of two stuffed shamus that he slept with every night along with Mr. Crab. Then one day we lost both of them. I'm still not sure what happened to Shamu number one, but Shamu number two was left behind at my sister's house after a visit. She brought him back to our house the next time they came over so Jake could be reunited with his favorite cetacean.

But alas, Jake took Shamu over to his friend Leo's house one day and Shamu found a big, black hole to disappear into. We turned the house upside down and Shamu never did turn up. Jake was sad. Very sad. If you know our son, you know he leans towards the theatrical. He often came up to us, head down, feet shuffling ever so slowly lamenting that he was sad because Shamu was gone and he was NEVER going to see him again. He even gave up watching Free Willy for awhile because he no longer had his Shamu to reinact the movie with. It was pitiful. We kept telling him we would get him a new Shamu on our next trip to Sea World.

But on Saturday a plain, brown package arrived for Jake in the mail. He was very excited to open it because he doesn't get much mail around here. When he finally got inside of the box he was SO excited! Lo and behold, there was a super duper, new, bigger than ever Shamu inside! My dad knew how heartbroken Jake was about losing Shamu and found him another one. The tag on it says it's from Sea World even. Jake and Orca have been inseparable ever since.