Both kids have blankies. Adorable. I know. Kiddo's is green and fuzzy. Kiddette has two blankies -- a fuzzy pink-and-white one, and a smaller, crocheted pink one that she acquired in the hospital, along with her little infant bonnet. It's like a blankie tag team.
I wouldn't mind so much the blankie love if said blankies would just stay in place. Like, on their beds, all day. But kiddette absolutely insists on bringing her fuzzy pink-and-white blankie -- aka Main Blankie -- to school, even though she hasn't taken a nap roughly since she was still wearing diapers. (Every day her teacher sends home the daily report and writes "NO NAP" on it as though we should somehow still be surprised at that fact.) This means that Main Blankie must travel from her bed to the general area of the front door so that she can bring it to the car. For some reason this is such a herculean task that it isn't done until five seconds before she needs to leave, and the entire parade of coat and backpack and car is held up while she wanders around looking for the blankie that she'd left in a heap atop her bed.
On the other hand, kiddette never insists on bringing the crocheted blankie -- aka Auxiliary Blankie -- anywhere, and frequently forgets about it at bedtime, so it doesn't cause any trouble. It can be found at random spots throughout the house, sort of like an Elf on the Shelf, except softer.
Kiddo doesn't bring his blankie to school, so there's that. He just brings it everywhere else. Grandma and Grandpa's house. The supermarket. Karate class. Any sort of car trip requires the blankie, even if the trip is only five minutes. The worry is, he's been known to bring toys places and lose them. How hard could it be to misplace a green fuzzy blankie?
We nearly found out last week. I brought him to karate class, then we dashed home to get food before heading out to a doctor's appointment. Naturally, he'd brought his blankie and a toy. The toy came into the doctor's office with him. The blankie, as far as I knew, did not.
We managed to leave the office without forgetting the toy, came home and began our weekend project of cleaning out the playroom, because we are drowning in toys and many of them are baby-scaled. And next time I will pay someone to do that for me. I swear the toys multiply when we're not looking, like clothes hangers. Sometime around bedtime, kiddo began to flip when he couldn't find his blankie. And DH and I realized we hadn't seen the blankie all afternoon. Or the toy he'd brought to the doctor's office.
Crisis!
What if he had brought the blankie in? What if he'd hauled himself in my car afterward and forgotten to haul his stuff in with him?
What if his blankie and his toy were sitting in the parking lot of a doctor's office 20 minutes away? The increasingly icy, dark parking lot?
DH and I managed to get kiddo to bed, with the promise that we would keep looking, and then started to play "CSI." He had the blankie before lunch ... did he have it after lunch? He made me wrap the toy in the blankie so he could pretend it was a present. Was that before or after the doctor's appointment? It's not in any of the usual places he hides it in. Are we sure it's in the house?
Proving that becoming a parent makes you take leave of your senses, we were convincing ourselves that DH needed to drive out to the iced-over parking lot and check. Fortunately, DH had a better idea. He dug through the massive pile of still-unsorted toys in the basement ... and pulled out the blankie, still wrapped around the toy from before. Where it had clearly been all afternoon.
I was delighted, and also wanted to smack my forehead a few dozen times.
Kiddo was ecstatically reunited with his blankie in the morning. I don't think we've had any incidents since then.
I know I should appreciate this whole blankie thing, and how adorable it is, and how in a few years they won't want to hug me or a blankie anymore. But that's a little hard to remember when we're all playing Blankie Hide and Go Seek at school time, or bedtime, or pretty much any other inconvenient time.
Still I hold out hope that they'll start being more mindful of their blankies. Because clearly, I'm not up to the task.
I wouldn't mind so much the blankie love if said blankies would just stay in place. Like, on their beds, all day. But kiddette absolutely insists on bringing her fuzzy pink-and-white blankie -- aka Main Blankie -- to school, even though she hasn't taken a nap roughly since she was still wearing diapers. (Every day her teacher sends home the daily report and writes "NO NAP" on it as though we should somehow still be surprised at that fact.) This means that Main Blankie must travel from her bed to the general area of the front door so that she can bring it to the car. For some reason this is such a herculean task that it isn't done until five seconds before she needs to leave, and the entire parade of coat and backpack and car is held up while she wanders around looking for the blankie that she'd left in a heap atop her bed.
On the other hand, kiddette never insists on bringing the crocheted blankie -- aka Auxiliary Blankie -- anywhere, and frequently forgets about it at bedtime, so it doesn't cause any trouble. It can be found at random spots throughout the house, sort of like an Elf on the Shelf, except softer.
Kiddo doesn't bring his blankie to school, so there's that. He just brings it everywhere else. Grandma and Grandpa's house. The supermarket. Karate class. Any sort of car trip requires the blankie, even if the trip is only five minutes. The worry is, he's been known to bring toys places and lose them. How hard could it be to misplace a green fuzzy blankie?
We nearly found out last week. I brought him to karate class, then we dashed home to get food before heading out to a doctor's appointment. Naturally, he'd brought his blankie and a toy. The toy came into the doctor's office with him. The blankie, as far as I knew, did not.
We managed to leave the office without forgetting the toy, came home and began our weekend project of cleaning out the playroom, because we are drowning in toys and many of them are baby-scaled. And next time I will pay someone to do that for me. I swear the toys multiply when we're not looking, like clothes hangers. Sometime around bedtime, kiddo began to flip when he couldn't find his blankie. And DH and I realized we hadn't seen the blankie all afternoon. Or the toy he'd brought to the doctor's office.
Crisis!
What if he had brought the blankie in? What if he'd hauled himself in my car afterward and forgotten to haul his stuff in with him?
What if his blankie and his toy were sitting in the parking lot of a doctor's office 20 minutes away? The increasingly icy, dark parking lot?
DH and I managed to get kiddo to bed, with the promise that we would keep looking, and then started to play "CSI." He had the blankie before lunch ... did he have it after lunch? He made me wrap the toy in the blankie so he could pretend it was a present. Was that before or after the doctor's appointment? It's not in any of the usual places he hides it in. Are we sure it's in the house?
Proving that becoming a parent makes you take leave of your senses, we were convincing ourselves that DH needed to drive out to the iced-over parking lot and check. Fortunately, DH had a better idea. He dug through the massive pile of still-unsorted toys in the basement ... and pulled out the blankie, still wrapped around the toy from before. Where it had clearly been all afternoon.
I was delighted, and also wanted to smack my forehead a few dozen times.
Kiddo was ecstatically reunited with his blankie in the morning. I don't think we've had any incidents since then.
I know I should appreciate this whole blankie thing, and how adorable it is, and how in a few years they won't want to hug me or a blankie anymore. But that's a little hard to remember when we're all playing Blankie Hide and Go Seek at school time, or bedtime, or pretty much any other inconvenient time.
Still I hold out hope that they'll start being more mindful of their blankies. Because clearly, I'm not up to the task.
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