Ben Madilynn
If my adult granddaughter, Katie Wagner, was still a child, she might have had some of her stuffed animals participate in Friday night’s Stuffed Animal Sleepover at the George Public Library. But probably not since it might have been cause for some separation anxiety.
Both Katie, who grew up in Sheldon but now lives in Des Moines, and her cousin, Zoey Wagner, who grew up in Des Moines and now lives in Chicago, loved stuffed animals when they were young. Katie’s collection covered most of her full-size bed. Her favorites, 10-inch stuffed duplicates of Disney’s Chip and Dale, went along in her suitcase anytime she spent a night away from home.
And Zoey was just the same. I remember buying both girls a stuffed hippopotamus as one of their gifts when “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” was especially popular several years ago.
George librarian Kayla Gerloff shared with me she found the idea for the Stuffed Animal Sleepover from a list of “get the community involved” suggestions on one of her professional websites. “But I did adapt it a little to better fit our community,” she said.
It is the first time the idea has been tried in George.
The kids, and even some adults, were really excited about the idea when we announced it, she said. One woman who works across the street asked if it would be possible for her to bring some of her stuffed animals.
The stuffed animal owners dropped off their usually quiet stuffed friends early Friday evening and picked them up this morning (Saturday, Sept. 14).
The night had some special moments for the owners to make it even more fun for them. Gerloff had crafts for them to do when they arrived with their animals at the library. That included coloring a drawing of stuffed animals and key chains with animals in their PJ’s that they also could color and take home. She also had special collars with name tags for each animal to ensure the correct pet got back to the proper owner this morning.
According to Gerloff, who has been the George librarian for 11 years, everything went fine during the time the children were there and before they went home. Nothing as serious as the bears trying to eat the cats, she said, but later that night the animals did get into some real mischief.
They must have been hungry, Gerloff reported, “’cause the food cart was a terrible mess” and more than a few books were scatted on the floor. Fortunately, there wasn’t any honey on the cart, or the bears might have gotten that in between the pages of some of the books and ruined them.
The animals, Gerloff reported, seemed to prefer the picture books over ones with printed chapters.
It also seems the animals wanted to have their turn at coloring pictures and trying out some of the other craft supplies. Crayons, glitter and scraps of construction paper were strewed everywhere as were pieces from a few puzzles on display.
If you want to see for yourself the animals and mess yourself, Gerloff will be posting photos on the library Facebook page George Public Library on Facebook.
Meanwhile, back to Katie and her Chip and Dale friends. When our three generations of family were vacationing in Hawaii in 2021, Katie, then in college, brought her favorite two stuffed animals with her.
Each night when she went to bed, she would put the two of them on the nightstand next to the foldout bed she slept on in the living room. Then she would sleep in late the next morning.
I usually woke up long before she did and about the third morning, I started relocating her two little friends into some semi-dangerous situation while she slept.
One time I had them sitting on top of the living room curtain rod and another time eating out of bag of chips someone had left open on the kitchen table.
The final morning, I placed them on the edge of the balcony, looking out toward the parking lot and told Katie they were running away to get back home before us.
It was all in good fun, and Katie played along with the joke nicely, always scolding her animals for their “naughty” actions.
Peter W. Wagner is the founder/publisher of The N’West Iowa REVIEW. He lives in Sibley and may be reached at pww@iowainformation.com.
