build-a-bear

Saturday morning we rounded up all the Grieco cousins and headed to the mall to build a bear. Sean wanted a skateboarding bear while Ryan had to be steered away from a spotted pink leopard. The concept itself is pretty cool – you choose a bear (or turtle, or kitty, or monkey, or frog…) and you stuff it and dress it up. You can even choose a sound effect or record your own voice so that whenever you press the paw you hear “meow, meow, meow” or “I’m a gnarly skateboard dude” for instance. So after you’ve filled your bear with stuffing, a heart, and a voice, you take it over for a bath and then to the dressing room. Now, maybe I'm harbouring feelings of jealousy that my generation never had such cool stuffed animals with a plethora of outfits, but is it really necessary to sell red lace underwear for teddy bears? What demographic does that cater to exactly? Regardless of all the seemingly ridiculous and endless wardrobe options, it’s pretty fun time if you can get the kids involved to stay focused and not run wild throwing every accessory (i-pod, cell phone) into the basket. Looking back, eating cupcakes before hand maybe wasn't such a great idea but it made for a fun car ride. At the end you even get to name your bear and get a birth certificate printed out. If it should happen to get lost, each bear is registered with a barcode and can be returned to its rightful owner. And all for the low price of $75 each, not including lunch.