Se7ame Street

Sometime back in May I was blabbering about Greek baptisms; the fact that the baby is normally about 15 months old by the time this ordeal gets underway and that a plush cuddly toy is the generally accepted appropriate gift. Since then I have learned that if the parents are popular and the baptism is massive, there is huge potential for the one-and-only decent toy shop to supply duplicate gifts, and that would never do! Shortly afterwards a Blip by a Blipper I do not know alerted me to a source of out-of-this-world plush cuddly toys and I bookmarked it.

Three weeks ago we discovered to our total dismay that the baby born in April, who's parents are to be married in mid-October, and to which wedding we know we shall be invited, will hold the baptism on the day after the wedding! That gave us six weeks to source a gift for a six-month-old baby! The ultimate teddy shop let us down badly. I had wanted the white rabbit dressed as WonderWoman but a – it was out of stock, b – it was inappropriate for such a young infant and c – they won't ship it outside of the contiguous United States. The first two I can accept but that third one makes me spit. I am infuriated by the number of times I am told that this or that “does not ship to your country”.

So, I resorted to the dot co dot uk variant of the ultimate teddy shop to find what they had suitable for tiny babies, shippable to bandit countries such as Greece, different from anything likely to be readily sourced locally and within budget. Hurrah! Cookie Monster and Elmo from Sesame Street! I ordered both because we know another couple who are expecting their first child, we are unlikely to be invited to any services or celebrations but would love to give their newborn a gift to welcome them into this big and scary world. So three weeks ago I ordered two identical toys, one in red and one in blue and today they arrived, well, one did, the other was just a severed head.

Yes, there's that brilliant scene in the film Se7en, but honestly, would you choose to welcome a brand new life into this complex world with the gift of a severed head in a cardboard box? I didn't think so. I have emailed a copy of this pic to the suppliers requesting the missing torso and limbs.