This mom lied to her husband for the cutest reason ever: 'I don't have the heart to tell him'

A mother in Utah held a secret from her husband for the sweetest reason. Kylie Katich, 27, revealed a beautiful story behind her 7-month-old daughter Esti's adorable brown bear costume in a now-viral TikTok video. Katich begins the video by stating that she was still carrying Esti when her husband, Alex, 29, purchased a lovely teddy bear zip-up costume for the child. “He became obsessed with it and dresses her in it almost every single day,” Katich says in the video. “The only problem is that she grows out of it, and I haven’t had the heart to tell him that yet.”

Katich then reveals that she’s been “secretly replacing” the costume almost every month since Esti was born because she doesn't want her husband's heart to break. Since Katich posted the video on November 5, it has been viewed almost 16 million times. The video was captioned, "Bear suit Update." In a twist, Katich reveals that Alex actually found out about the lie but hadn't been saying anything. “Except, guys, then I found out that he knows the secret!” she exclaims, as the camera pans to Alex, who is holding Esti. “It’s like when you have a fish and it dies and your parents replace it before you can see it — that’s what this bear suit is like,” Alex says, with a big smile.

Katich, a Salt Lake City-based photographer, revealed to TODAY that Alex was "extremely apprehensive" about becoming a father. He has little prior experience working with kids. But everything changed when Alex found the bear costume at a nearby H&M. “He took photos of it in the store. And that night, he laid it in bed with us,” Katich recalled. “Every time he would take a nap on the couch, the bear suit was with him. Then, when it was time to head to the hospital, the bear suit was the only thing he wanted to pack.”

Alex's attachment to the bear suit only grew when their little cub was born and Katich said she experienced full-blown panic when the suit sold out online. “When they restocked it, I ended up buying all the sizes,” she confessed. Katich explains that she understands Alex’s emotional attachment to the outfit. “The second he saw the bear suit, fatherhood clicked and became real for him. I watched it happen,” she said. “It sounds so silly and weird but he truly nurtured this little bear suit. The bear suit was the first thing that made him like, ‘This is really happening and I'm ready.’”

Katich shared that she bought a white polar outfit recently so she could “mix it up a little,” or else her husband “would have her in the brown bear suit every day,” adding “It’s the only thing he wants to dress her in.” TikTok users had their own fun with the trope, with many users suggesting that the child will wear these well into her adulthood, maybe walking to the aisle in it! User @poisonsystem25 says, "Petition for you to keep every bear suit so that one day you can see how much she's grown simply by lining the bear suits up next to each other." Another user @brunette_badie jokes, "Well let's prey h&m always has it in stock forever for you." A user suggests buying the husband a matching one. Another user suggests keeping the old bear suits for potential future siblings, making it a thing for them to grow up with!