too much love

we have a basket of soft toys at work that the kids are allowed to take one from it at rest time if they don't have their own toy to cuddle. one of the boys has recently fallen in love with one of the rabbits in the basket and makes sure he has it every day at rest time (he's there 5 days a week). the other afternoon after rest time i heard one of the other staff talking to him saying "i'm sorry but there isn't any way to fix them. i can't just put them back on". i looked over and tears were rolling down his face as he held the rabbit. the other staff had a couple pieces of thin plastic strips in her hand-- the rabbits whiskers. they'd fallen out and the child just wanted the rabbit to look like he used to. i mentioned to the another staff in the room that he was pretty upset about the rabbit (the kinder rabbit-- not even his own toy) losing its whiskers. she went over to try to comfort him (and talked about the velveteen rabbit and that it just means the rabbit has been well loved). the poor kid just has so much going on in his life right now and i think the rabbit losing its whiskers was all a bit too much for him (although the next day when i took a look at the rabbit it did look a bit weird-- a bit like a monkey face-- without the whiskers).