ChiKat

The Beijing Olympics are in 2008. The official mascots are the five adorable creatures shown above.

When we were in Beijing, I totally feel in love with the mascots and bought a set of them for the baby (my first baby purchase!). That night, I pointed out to my husband that the mascots were called the "Friendlies", which I thought sounded creepy and a lot like friend-less.

The next morning, the China Daily reported that the government had changed the mascot name to the more traditional Fuwa rather than Friendlies, because "Friendlies" sounded too much like "friend-less".

My paranoid husband refused to talk in our hotel room after that because he was convinced that:
A. It was bugged
B. It was wired to the Chinese government
and most importantly…
C. They AGREED with me

I was thankful my luggage wasn't searched on the way out of China because I bought the five mascots for the baby, plus another five for the other kids in the family. When you opened my suitcase, they sprung out at you like some strange, Akira-like security device.

Once we were home, my dog "helped" unpack by pouncing on BeiBei, one of the mascots, and triumphantly carrying her out of the room. I could practically hear BeiBei screaming at the torture (in Mandarin, of course) as I pried her out of the dog's mouth. After ringing her out of all the dog drool, she seems to have recovered, but I'm starting to suspect the training for "baby toy" vs. "dog toy" is going to be hard*.

The dog is sulking in the other room and I'm feeling guilty about not bringing him back a toy from China.

* On me, not the dog.