Build-a-Hello Kitty?

Not much to do in Michigan in the winter time, so we often find ourselves strolling through the mall just to get out of the house.  Frequent stops at the mall include Pottery Barn Kids, Baby Gap, and Starbucks... plus countless escalator and elevater rides as well.  Anyway, right next door to Baby Gap is a Build-a-Bear store.... after numerous inquiries by our princess as to what this place was all about, we dropped by for a visit.

I rate it a 'B', Maddie would probably say it's closer to a 'B+'.  If you've never been, basically what you do is pick an unstuffed bear off a wall, hook the back of the bear up to a stuffing station, press a pedal to stuff the bear with cotton, go to the back of the store to the grooming station - where the kids press a pedal that blows air on the new stuffed animal (pic above), pick out an outfit, dress the animal at the changing station, go to a computer and generate a birth certificate, and then finally make the purchase.  Now I wasn't paying 100% attention to the entire Build-a-Bear experience, but I believe it has a tag in it as well -- which identifies the stuffed creature if it gets lost -- of course the bear will never be found unless someone goes out of their way to report the lost animal to the nearest Build-a-Bear store.

I rather enjoyed the whole assembly line process, which helped to maintain order amongst several excited children waiting for their new stuffed bears.  But the only "fun" part in my mind was the actual stuffing of the animal --- which took all of 2 minutes.  And this part, of course, was not a fan favorite by our princess -- this mainly due to the fact that she does not seek help from strangers -- Maddie much rather prefers to do things herself in these types of situations -- so I assisted the employee by pressing the stuffing pedal to fill up the animal.  After we stuffed the animal, Maddie had a blast at the grooming station... and the outfit section, pink ballerina of course.  Oh, I almost forgot the first part.  So we're standing there looking at all the unstuffed bears on the wall... and Maddie grabs the only bear-deviation available, the Hello Kitty.  She barely has had an interest in Hello Kitty up until this point, and aside from a coloring book in her possession, this was really her first toy from the contagious product line.  Time will tell if her collection grows, but what I can tell you is this - the Hello Kitty has made the exclusive list of dolls that stay in bed with her at night - you be the judge. 

Overall it was a kind-of-fun experience... however I'm not sure if it left a lasting impression on Maddie, who's surprisingly particular at such a young age.  We'll see on our next trip back to the mall, but my bet is that Pottery Barn Kids will still trump all.