The Demise of Mr. Monkey

Further to my post in February, I am sad to announce the passing of the much loved and well traveled Mr. Monkey. Though his life was short he will be sorely missed... by Alena.

We discovered he was missing on May 17th in Auckland... barely a day into our trip. It appears that he was thrown to the floor in a fit of rage by Lena whilst she was protesting sitting in her car seat, and that he fell out of the car unnoticed when the car door was opened. Either that or he just decided that he had had enough abuse and went to find somewhere else to gain affection. Lena was rather distraught and went through a period of denial in which she cuddled other soft toys but insisted that they made monkey noises too. Sadly, this seems to have been detrimental to the wellbeing of the other animals (Mr. Tiger and Annoying Sheep to name a few) since all the other fake monkeys came to the same fate along the trip. We affectionately called them roadkill.

Here is the last documented whereabouts of Mr. Monkey.



It is a mystery how he escaped... his head looks as though it is in a pretty secure vice-like grip to me.

But all is not lost! Unbeknown to Lena, Mummy came to the rescue and ordered not one but three new Mr. Monkeys. They were waiting for her when she got back home in Provo (well, one was... the other two were in plastic bags) and to Lena it was like Mr. Monkey had never gone missing!



She still doesn't know Mr. Monkey II is an impostor. Maybe we will tell her when she is older and can handle the truth. But for now we are happy to tell her in her innocence that Mr. Monkey swam all the way across the Pacific and braved the mountains and the deserts so he could see her again.

She owes us big time!