This Thoughts on Thursday post is inspired by our recent loss of Rocky… we arrived back to our Winter Park, FL vacationing home (aka, Mary Ann Porter’s house… Jess’s mother in law), and realized we had left Rocky somewhere… who knows where… in our condo in Orlando. We frantically searched our bags and car and called the condo housekeeping, but there has been no sign of Rocky thus far. Luckily, Porter hasn’t mentioned his name, but oddly, I’m torn up about it.
I seriously was about to have a meltdown yesterday, thinking of poor Rocky, stuck in the dark depths behind or under the bed in the condo or in a wad of bedding in some huge resort laundry center. I kept replaying in my head all the sweet moments I’ve watched Porter play with Rocky, waking up in the mornings and grabbing him and tucking him over his shoulder in the crook of his neck, remembering the meltdown he had when I took Rocky to be washed when he spilled caramel all over him, thinking of the last time I saw him the evening before as I read Porter his bedtime story and thinking in my head "his little white horn on his nose is getting a bit dirty". I was ready to drive back to the resort and search the room myself, and go through all their bedding and see with my own eyes that Rocky wasn’t there.
Is that pathetic? Is it so pathetic that my child isn’t missing his lovey, but I am? How mental can I be? Why is it that I am the one seriously attached to this purple dinosaur blanket toy?
We weren’t sure how Porter would react at bedtime so I ran to Target and bought a "rarr" (aka, Lion) for Porter to sleep with. He went to bed fine, never said a word about "RocKKK", but that did not stop me from getting online pronto and googling "purple triceratops blanket" and ordering the first one I found. I feel a *little* better about losing The Real Rocky, and hope that *I* can forget that the replacement isn’t The Real Rocky and love him just as much. Oh my word! I’m ridiculous. I’m worse than a kid… who in their right mind has an attachment to their child’s lovey?
So, what is my Thought for Thursday. Well, its about loveys, aka security blankets… does your child have one? Are YOU attached to it? How would YOU feel if your child lost their lovey? Do you have backups? Have you ever had to use one and how did that work out… did your child notice, and if they did, did they get over it? Did YOU get over it?
Wow, lots of thoughts I want to hear about.
And, don’t forget, I will be doing a follow up on last weeks. Its been a crazy week… I’m still playing catchup from not having internet while we were at Disney.
By the way, if you are doing your own Thoughts on Thursday post on your blog, let me know in the comments and I’ll post a link!
nicolebarczak.com 
Nicole,
I’ve been a reader of your blog for quite some time and just love your stories, picts etc. I am an sj’er.
The blog entry today hit home for me!
My daughter Hayden has a lovey that is her life!! She cannot go ANYwhere without it. It’s a little blue flat stuffed puppy. He goes by the original name of ‘Puppy’ LOL and he looks pathetic but is sooo loved. We have many times dropped and lost puppy as he’s not very big at all. We even lost him at the mall one time and “I” had tears welling up inside of me thinking what in the heck would we do if we couldn’t find it. My other daughter and I retraced our steps and found it in the aisle of the store Thankfully!! I’m so attached to the dang thing it’s crazy, so I do sympathize w/you! So if you are crazy I’m right along with you!!!! 🙂
~Lisa
lsailors@huntel.net
My son didn’t have a blanket or animal that he was attached to but a litle Hot Wheels van that had once said Stinky’s Diaper Service on it. He loved that thing and literally had it with him everywhere. He called it Stinky’s blue van. His 2 year old portraits even have Stinky’s in them. One day we thought that we left Stinkys in the change room at swimming. I felt sick and was franticaly looking everywhere, called the pool and even went back and looked for it. It ended up that he had put it down his overalls and didn’t find it until we changed him. I can relate when you said how attached you are to Rocky, hopefully he will be found and if not I’m sure you will grow to love the replacement as much as you loved the first Rocky.
I’ve been meaning to “converse” on this one all weekend, but I’ve been too busy. But I think about it everytime I look at my kids with their “loveys”!
My kids both have lovey attachments. Two each actually. When they were tiny, I did encourage it… Savannah always had the same blanket (with the satin edge she loves) and a little windup musical stuffed duck. I wanted her to have these “cues” and familiarities right from the beginning because I knew I wanted her to be a portable sleeper. I wanted to help her be able to sleep anywhere as I foresaw many trips, camping nights, sleepovers and grammas, etc., so I knew having a couple of familiar “securities” would help with that. Also to promote independence in general… to have an easier time if we weren’t around and she needed some extra security. She took to it herself and right around a year old, she started getting her blanket herself for bedtime, or keeping it with her when she got out of bed in the morning to snuggle.
So to this day she still has her blanket (unfortunately her duck died) and somewhere along the way she also attached herself to her beloved Lammie. I don’t even remember where we got Lammie or when she became so attached to it, but she is now her very best friend. Reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit.
So when Sawyer was born, I knew I wanted to do the same thing and provide him with a comfort item to sleep with. “We” picked a super soft little froggy-slash-blanket and he took right to it. He always liked to sleep with it tucked under his cheek. So cute! He also adopted another animal, I think he wanted to be like his big sister because he picked a stuffed dog Savannah christened “Banjo” that reminds me a little of Lammie… he has the same beanbag feel. Actually, come to think of it, Savannah was the one who decided Sawyer always wanted to sleep with Banjo, always throwing in his crib with him and bringing it to him when he was upset. Well, now he’s as attached to Banjo as he is to his froggy.
I think these loveys have helped my two tremendously, especially with all the travel and moving we’ve done in the past year or two. I do keep them at home or in the car unless they’re really needed. I don’t mind if they want to bring them out when we go somewhere, but I don’t want them dragging them through stores or wherever we are. They know they have to leave them in the car. I always say they need to stay in there to save their seats and also so we don’t lose them.
I have been meaning to buy a back up froggy, as after Savannah became attached to her blanket so much I tried to find a second one, but they were discontinued and super hard to find on ebay or anything. Since it was really hard for her to go to sleep without it if it had gotten wet or thrown up on or something, I had her gramma make her a duplicate. But it’s not the same and she always knew it. So I need to get Sawyer a double froggy before it’s too late!!
Both my boys have had an attachment to their little blankets. The oldest is nine and though he doesn’t carry it around or sleep with it much he still has it. My two year old has to have his “giapey” as he calls it. It started off being called “dippy”, then went to “diapey” and now it’s “giapey.” He doesn’t carry it around everywhere…though if we let him he might, but wants it whenever he is tired or feels he needs it. It’s the only blanket he sleeps with. It needs to be sewn up badly. Unfortunately, we don’t have another one and don’t know what we would do if it got lost! My dsughter never really had anything she was attached to. With us expecting another boy next month I wonder if he will have a special blankie also.