Clara just loves Best Friend Pretend Shark. He is a great friend to her, and he's generally quite fun to have around. He doesn't live at our house, of course, since he's water dwelling by nature, so he's usually either "very far away at the ocean" or "very far away at the lake." The phrase "very far away" is clearly relative, since we are but five minutes from the lake but a solid five hours from the ocean. Nevertheless, Shark manages to make either commute in good time when he is summoned to our home.
The funny thing about Best Friend Pretend Shark, though, is that sometimes he is either unwilling or unable to get to our house by himself. This typically happens when we're in the car.
"Where's my Best Friend Pretend Shark?" Clara asks.
"I'm not sure," I'll reply, hoping that he'll show up so we won't have to spend our whole car ride talking about where he is and why he isn't in the car and where he'll possibly sit when he gets here since the diaper bag is on the passenger seat.
Typically, though, if we're in the car and Shark needs to come along I'll either have to convince her that he's spending the day with his family or I'll have to be close enough to the lake to swing by. If we can get a visual of the lake (and by this I mean if Clara can get a visual of the lake) then Clara will start yelling at him to get in the car.
In some ways I feel bad for Shark, since every time he finally makes it into the car (and I buckle his seatbelt) he is almost instantly forgotten. He doesn't get to go swimming with us or to the store or to the park. He just gets buckled in and has to sit around in the hot car. Poor Shark. Oh well. It probably beats swimming around in the lake. He is a shark, after all.
