Back when my son, Adam, was 18 months old, we managed to lose his favorite blankie at a street fair. When we realized it was gone, we went looking for it, going up and down aisles, asking vendors and attendees if they saw his blankie. It was never recovered 🙁 I’m not sure why anyone would have cared to keep it. It was well loved and showing signs of wear, but it was gone. Unfortunately, our wee man was inconsolable as you can well imagine! Eventually, he did develop a new relationship with another blanket, but it was never the same. Somewhere, deep within his psychie, I think he still laments the lose of his special lovey, and probably holds some enormous, deep-seated resentment for me for allowing this to happen! I just hope that realization never bubbles to the surface! 😉
After that experience, I started making 2 identical blankies for the babies in my life. They were basically crib sized blankets, that I cut in half, added bindings, and tah-dah, identical twin blankies. Now, if one blankie was ever lost, there would be a “back up”. As an extra bonus, they were smaller than normal sized blankies, making them much easier for a wee one to drag around. I thought it was a brilliant idea… but it was only HALF a brilliant idea. When we had left my youngest son, Drew’s, blankie at my mom’s house, I pulled out the stored back-up blanket, and I was very pleased with myself. After Drew’s first initial reaction of joy, he rubbed the blanket between his fingers, sniffed it, and finally put a corner in his mouth and promptly rejected it! He knew it wasn’t HIS blanket! It was an imposter… a forgery… a sham meant to con him! The trouble was, it was new! His real blanket was broken in. He had beaten down and softened the fibers. He had sucked on corners and marked it with his smells. It may as well looked entirely different. I could not switch out one for another.
Lesson learned! When Michelle had Bug, I made him 2 blankies, but this time Michelle kept switching them out. When one was dirty and needed to go through the wash, she removed the offending blanket, and mysteriously brought a clean blankie back into the room. Both blankets received the same amount of wear and tear, both were equally loved, and he never had to experience a separation anxiety when 1 was not available. Now, it was a full-blown brilliant idea.
