Bye Bye Blankie

When my kids were babies, I prided myself on never using a pacifier. I wasn't one of those moms whose kids walked around with a tooth-deforming hunk-o-rubber in their mouths. No, my children would be soothed by a washable, all natural cotton security blanket.

By the time they were four, my kids were still hanging on to their "blankies." I asked their pediatrician when I needed to take it away: "When they're 40." he said. He explained that since it wasn't doing them any harm -- and since he'd never heard of a kid going off to college with a security blanket, I shouldn't worry about it. He added that it wouldn't even be so bad if they kept a little square of it in their wallets as adults. "Hey," he said "anything that makes them feel more secure, as long as it isn't hurting them...why not?"

Luckily, I had selected Comfort Silkie on the recommendation of a friend, so I could buy them by the dozen, yellow for him, white for her. My kids slept with them, they were quieted by them in the car and on airplanes.(I think they saved us from the wrath of those-in-the-next-row on many a flight) No dental issues, and no worries about having to take them away. All was right with the world.

Yeah right.

'Cause it turns out that my son - who just holds his blankie, really could keep it until he was forty, but my daughter, who sucks on hers (yuck!) needs to lose the blankie before the braces come on.

So much for feeling smug about that pacifier.

We've been talking about this for months -- "You have to give up your blankie. When are you gonna give up your blankie?  Do you think you can give up your blankie?"  She never gave it up.

Until last week.  Last week my daughter announced that she was going to sleep with her heretofore completely ignored bunny, Bunston. I imagined sleepless nights, crying fits, hysteria.  So what happened, I was so nervous about it all, I coulnd't sleep, but my daughter, she slept just fine. 

I know I should be happy.  I know I should be proud that she just did it - no drama, no nothing. (Hey, better late than never.)  But I'm a little bit sad.  You know when your kids first start talking and they say things like "Mazagine" instead of Magazine,  or ambliance instead of ambulance, or how they can never, ever say the word butterfly?  My kids even called our national bird "the balding eagle."  The blankie is in the same category as all of those cute baby-isms:  it's an indelible part of their babyness. 

By the time they're nine, most of that baby stuff is over.  Suddenly, instead of adorable mispronunciations, there's this know-it-all surety, and just a hint of 'tude.

To me, the blankie was the last vestige of babyhood.  And since I have twins, I only get to go through that baby stage once. Bye bye blankie means bye bye babyhood.  And while I don't miss the diapers, or the late night feedings, or the seeming inability of either of my twins to have been able to understand the word "later," I will miss the special baby bond between mother and child.  I will miss the image of my baby daughter curled up in her crib that her blankie could still evoke. I'm amazed myself, but I will miss that smelly, ratty blankie. 

Except that I don't have to miss it -- I've kept one, high on a shelf. Whenever I'm feeling nostalgic for the innocence and closeness of their baby years, I'll just haul it out and snuggle with it for a moment. Hey, it's like the pediatrician said -- I don't have to give it up until I'm forty.  And since that's never gonna happen (I've just celebrated my fifth annual 39th birthday), I'll keep blankie -- and babyhood -- forever.

Original Post to NYC Moms blog

Nancy R. Friedman writes for Traveling Mom, and at her own blog, Ageless Body/timeless Mom.