It probably says a lot about me that, rather than a teddy bear, my beloved stuffed animal as a child was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. 

“Do you want a teddy, sweetie?” -My mother 27 years ago. 

“T-REX!”-My 2 year old self. 

“A…T-Rex?”- My mildly confused mother. 

“T REX T REX T REX.” -my stubborn 2 year old ass, who’d been watching dinosaur documentaries taped off of PBS on repeat for six months straight. 

“Okay.” -My resigned mother. 

She then proceeded to make one because of fucking course they don’t have stuffed T Rexes at Target. 

I got him for Christmas. I named him T-Rex. I love him. He went everywhere with me. I threatened people I didn’t like by saying I would feed them to T-rex. He sits on my vanity now as a protector. I’ve carefully patched him a couple times with the leftover fabric from when Mom made him; she bought extra and saved it because she is a wise woman and Knew. 

“Why does your daughter have a stuffed dinosaur. Wouldn’t you like a nice doll or bear more?” -many, many people throughout my childhood. 

“Why’s playing with a stuffed bear better than a T rex. They’re both apex predators.” -My mother. 

“What.”-those same befuddled people.