Conversations With Stuffed Animals

When I was about four years old, I asked my mother to write our address down.

She wrote it on the back of a plain, white envelope. I then took that envelope into my bedroom, which I had converted into a classroom. I lined up all of my stuff animals around the room, assigned them names, and made name tags for them. I then proceeded to teach each of them how to write our address; copying my mother's handwriting over and over again, until each student had a small piece of paper in front of them with the info.

Of course, I'm sure things were misspelled and not even legible, but the point being, even at age four, I had created a knack for myself. Not only did I personify each stuffed animal, giving them names and voices, I had begun the early stages of learning how to write.

And I was teaching.

My powerful four year old mind had the capability to believe I was teaching something to someone else. It didn't matter that they were just, in essence, stuff animals; stuff animals who couldn't think, feel, or speak (let alone write). I believed that they were real and that they could do anything I taught them.

That was all that mattered.