Many babies and toddlers have a special soft toy that they sleep with. A little lovey blanket, teddy bear, bunny rabbit, doll, etc….

Sarah has this thing.

A while back, Anna got a kid’s meal from Sonic and this was inside. Oh, it’s an octopus, I thought… wait a minute, it only has 5 arms… what the heck is that?!? Reading the tag on it informed us it was a “Starfish Tot.” Ok, sure, 5 arms, but it’s tall like the classic Sonic tater tot. I get it.

So you’re wondering how it ended up in Sarah’s crib? Because Anna is absolutely the sweetest, most loving, most sharing big sister on the face of the earth. And one day she just put it in Sarah’s crib, saying something along the lines of “This goes in here.” And that was that. The Starfish Tot was bequeathed to the younger.

But we still couldn’t get past the fact that it strongly resembles an octopus. “Starfish Tot” sounds ridiculous. Much more ridiculous than, say, “Totopus.” So somewhere along the way, the name stuck.

When we took Sarah on a visit to my parents’ house recently, I left it behind. I told David it didn’t matter; we could find some other toy to give her for naptime. She didn’t sleep. “We need Totopus!” David insisted. The next day, we took it. She slept.

At church, Sarah has a difficult time taking the morning nap she needs. The nursery worker asked me if she has a little blanket or anything that she sleeps with. “Well, um, she has this octopus thing…” I said rather sheepishly.

I’m a little concerned about the longevity of Totopus. After all, it was just a kids’ meal prize, so there couldn’t be more than a few pennies invested in it. I’m pretty sure it would disintegrate if I tried to wash it. Then there’s the whole issue of if it gets lost.

So if any of you have one of these gems sitting unwanted around your home, we might be willing to buy it from you for, say, five million bucks.

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