Stuffed giraffe teaches 3-year-old the meaning of "happy tears"

LANCASTER, Penn. -- Whoever coined the phrase "military brat" obviously never met the angelic daughter of Army Staff Sargent Nicholas Paugam and his wife Jenn. McKenzy is three, and if you look closely at pictures of her over the years you'll notice something.

A giraffe, which she calls "Raffe," is in almost every shot.

"I guess they call it like a lovey," said Jenn. "She always wants to go to bed with it. When she's sick she wants it. It's like her friend, the way that she acts with it."

Jenn says this friend has been McKenzy's constant through their many moves and has been especially comforting during Nick's deployments.

"When he's gone for weeks and months at a time, she still has this one thing."

Well, she had that one thing. Raffe got lost during their most recent move. To some this may seem like much ado about nothing, but losing a lovey can feel like very big deal.

McKenzy first noticed Raffe was missing right before the family's move from Washington State to Pennsylvania.

Her parents assumed he was in a box somewhere, but for 11 long days McKenzy had to live without her soulmate. Until, finally, at the very end of their unpacking, Raffe was found.

"As soon as Jenn found it she cut open the box and I was like, you know what, let me record this reaction," Nick said.

They hid Raffe in the refrigerator and told McKenzy to get a drink. As you would expect, she was delighted to be reunited.

But in that moment, McKenzy made another surprising discovery that a very strange thing happens when you're really, really happy.

She wanted to know why her eyes were "watering."

"In all of her life she'd never been so happy that she cried," said Jenn.

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