52W Mark III – Week 50: Chosen Family

As Amy noted in describing this week’s prompt for the 52 Ancestors Challenge, family isn’t just those to whom you’re genetically related. Many might add that it goes beyond just people. I know lots of people who consider their pets as part of the family. I suggest you can go beyond that, especially if you’re a child. For many children, a favourite stuffie can be as much a part of what they consider to be family as any living creature.

Our youngest definitely considers his favourite stuffy, Vivi, to be part of his adopted family. Not only that, he has created a whole “biological” family for her! Of course, he knows it’s not real and that Vivi is just a toy, but he has a very active imagination, wonderful creativity, and a lot of empathy.

He received Vivi from my youngest sister as a gift for his fourth birthday. The moment he tore off the wrapping paper and I caught a glimpse of Vivi, I did not think much of her. Of course, our little guy took to her and hugged Vivi right away. At that time, he had been forming strong attachments to a “favourite” stuffie that lasted only a matter of weeks. Looking at Vivi, I figured that pattern would would continue and she’d be quickly forgotten. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Vivi has been by our son’s side since he got her. He is connected to Vivi the way Linus is connected to his blanket. Our son has created a whole world, history, and back story for Vivi. He named her very quickly after receiving her. I thought he could not have chosen a less likely name. Later, he gave Vivi a surname – “Okayer”, which is pronounced “Oaker”. Over time, he had named Vivi’s birth parents. Vivi is a “Specktogosaurus”, a species of dinosaur of our son’s own imagination. In video games, he creates characters that are named Vivi or Okayer.

I was not understating it when I said our son has created a whole biological family for Vivi. Like his big brother, our son has developed an interest in genealogy. Not as passionately as me or his brother, but he is interested nevertheless. He enjoys sitting in beside me for portions of the monthly online meetings of the BC Genealogical Society. He loves to join me on trips to the BCGS library. His big project is trying to find a genealogical connection to his best friend, who he has known since pre-school. His other project has been to build a database for Vivi’s family tree.

Our boys share a home computer. One of the first things I installed when we got it was a copy of RootsMagic for our eldest. About a month or so ago, our youngest asked me if he could use it as well. Of course! I sat down with him and walked him through the basics, starting with a brand new database. I thought he was going to track our family, or the research he’s done of his friend’s family (which is pretty impressive for a nine-year-old!). Nope, he wanted to enter Vivi’s family.

Last week, he asked his aunt where she bought Vivi. Could he be looking for an addition to her family? No, he just wants to know that there is a place where there were more Specktogosauruses and that Vivi hadn’t been alone. I then reminded him that we had once seen another Specktogosaurus at the Calgary Airport.