IN OUR OWN HOME!
WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO ESCAPE.
OUR FAMILY IS DEPENDENT ON HIM. WE ARE EMOTIONALLY PARALYZED AND UNABLE TO FUNCTION WITHOUT HIM.
OUR CAPTOR -- THE CULPRIT -- SO INNOCENT LOOKING:
IS A GREEN FUZZY SEA TURTLE.
Yes, this stuffed turtle can make or break us. We're afraid to let him out of the house for any reason other than to join us on vacation.
We've been living this way for 5 years, the only change being The Sea Turtle (his name is Bonaire, after the island where he came from) taking over as President of the I've Got This Family By The Balls Board after The Rabbit became the semi-retired Board Chair (an advisory position).
The deal is, Shark Boy has had a "lovey" since exactly 12 months of age when he latched, ferociously, onto Gray Bunny. Gray Bunny and Shark were rarely parted. He carried Gray Bunny everywhere and slept with him every night. We lived IN ENORMOUS SWEATY FEAR of losing Gray Bunny. When out at a restaurant or at the park or at bedtime, P and I would hiss at each other where's Gray Bunny?!?!, slightly panicked at even the possibility that we couldn't put our hands RIGHT ON HIM.
Baby Shark and Gray Bunny at about 18 months.
Gray Bunny is in Shark's first birthday portraits. He helped Shark get through the shoot and anyway, Gray Bunny was a big part of his life already. And until Shark was 4, Gray Bunny was loved and loved, until his white tummy turned grayish and his whiskers fell out and his blue plastic eyes got scratched up. He was peed on and barfed on and got food stuck in his fur and had to be washed and dried more times than a stuffed rabbit should ever be.
But what a good and loyal friend he was.
Shark and Gray Bunny at 3 years old.
One of those moments I never want to forget occured when Shark was about 3, sitting next to me on the couch watching a cartoon. I was watching him. I saw him absent-mindedly bring Gray Bunny to his nose and give him a deep sniff. Then he saw me watching out of the corner of his eye and held Gray Bunny up to me and said, "You want to sniff him?" It was the sweetest thing in the world. I sniffed. (Gray Bunny did not smell good.)
Gray Bunny was needed and hugged tight around the neck whenever Shark was sick, or hurt, or tired. P and I said many times how if only we'd known when my mom put that rabbit in Shark's first Easter basket, we'd have rushed back to the store to buy ten back ups. But Shark would have known those were just Gray Bunny's cousins, anyway. Those replacements would never have smelled right.
Here is Gray Bunny today, in his loft bed where he pretty much stays all the time, waiting for his boy to climb up and go to sleep each night.
When I was pregnant with The Bear and Shark Boy was 4, P went on a scuba diving trip to a tiny island called Bonaire and he came home with a stuffed sea turtle which Shark named Bonaire. (The kid is pretty literal when it comes to naming things.)
And after a short transistion period during which he carried both rabbit and turtle around, he switched off to Bonaire.
Now if that damn turtle goes missing, we're screwed. One time picking Bear up at school Shark walked into the building with Bonaire and I failed to notice. FAIL.
He set it down somewhere and walked off without it. The school closed and we couldn't get the turtle back until the next day. Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth (that was me, Shark just sobbed in a pathetic and heartbreaking way). So now we try not to let Bonaire or his Cabinet out of the house.
Yes, Bonaire has deputies, hangers-on, VPs of "HA! DON'T LOSE TRACK OF ME FOOLS CAUSE HE'LL FREAK!"
Pengwoh the Penguin
and Otter the River Otter
One night last week when ALL THREE of these PAINS IN THE ASS loveys disappeared and P and I searched everywhere, including the garage and the deck and P may have tried the back yard (in the dark), it.was.terrible. He had to sleep without them the night before school started and I hated that. Of all nights.
They turned up (THANK YOU SAINT ANTHONY, PATRON SAINT OF LOST THINGS, WHO I TOTALLY BUGGED THE CRAP OUT OF OVER THIS) and all is well again.
The Bear is over 19 months old and isn't attached to a lovey yet. What do you think the chances are that we'll end up with a posse of elephants and tigers slapping their little fuzzy handcuffs on us and making us their beeyotches?
16 Fabulous People Comment:
Oh, I've been there! My littlest munchkin has yet to get attached to anything, but me! Talk about feel like I'm a hostage! LOL
This is why I purposely switched up The Boy's blankies and stuffed animals when he was a baby. So he would never get attached to one thing! He recently -- at nearly 4 years old -- started calling the blanket he naps with at school "blankie" which wigged me out because he's never even used that word before. But I'm guessing it's because other kids in his class use that word. I was afraid he was going to start mimicking their uber-attached behaviors too -- I've seen parents running back into the school to get their little one's lovey with a look of panic at the thought of what a night at home without blankie or bear would entail. But he didn't. Might have been my "Blankie? Where did that come from?" reaction that snapped him out of it. That's me, Miss Tactful and Sentimental. snort
Odds sound pretty good, LOL!
So cute. When I was that age I had a teddy bear and I named her Molly. Molly went EVERYWHERE, even on a cross-country Amtrak trip to see some family (from TN to NM, if that tells you anything!) Oh, the number of times the very nice train conductor returned Molly to me (or my frantic parents), after she had "wandered off." To this day, her nose is basically rubbed off, and her fur looks a lot like Gray Rabbit's. But oh, I still love that bear. She's waiting for when we have little ones!
Oh! That is why we have several!!
We have two for the kiddo and my teddy bear for me. I totally understand the feeling of being captive.
Oh yeah. We have 3 Babbits. The original (Old School Babbit), the replacement (New School Babbit), and the Replacement of the Replacement (Babbit 2.0). There are also several lesser Babbits, baby / girl / rattle versions of the original. Have I introduced you to my best friend Ebay?
Old School and New School both attended every.single.day of Kindergarten and first grade, stuffed deep inside a backpack. Here's hoping they decide to sit out the second grade. How much education, exactly, does a stuffed rabbit need?
patty: Bonaire Turtle spent many, many days with just his little nose peeking out of the backpack at Kindergarten! I know exactly what you mean.
I thought about ebay for a new gray bunny but Shark would not have gone for that. We'd just have ended up with TWO gray bunnies!
I'm rolling.
Amy, I can't believe we both have otters today. Too funny! I think Monkey would flip over a huge stuffed otter :-)
We have made it to both 4 3/4 and 23 months with no loveys.
This made me laugh :-)
I love stories like this! My BG is starting to attach herself to her "snuggly" it is a pig's head on a pink blanket kinda thing. LOVES IT!
Cat (a stuffed cat, in case no one inferred) was my first and I think most serious lovey although got lost in the mix somehow and I ended up attached to Miss Kitty, my MOM'S old lovey. I slept with that thing until high school and STILL TO THIS DAY bunch up my blankets under my arm when I sleep in place of where Miss Kitty used to be...
Passing on a little love note to you
http://charmingdelightful.blogspot.com/2008/08/you-heart-me-you-really-heart-me.html
Amazing how these little fluff stuffed things can hold us hostage.
Sugarplum:
Hi baby!! I have your cat! Safely tucked away. Remember I had it out next to one of your senior pictures at the big graduation bash?
I hope Miss Kitty is in your closet at my house? Thoughts?
Love your avatar. Gorgeous!
I'm sure the pictures don't do them justice. ;)
Loveys are great. Even if smelly. But, never when lost.
My boy has had "Bunny" (a white stuffed "Pat the Bunny") since birth. At age six, most of Bunny's fur was rubbed off, and you could see her stuffing through her skin. The Easter Bunny tracked down a new one and left it in his Easter basket with a note that the old Bunny was getting pretty old and tired, and asked if he would please take care of this new one. The boy was delighted. He got a second replacement Bunny for his 10th birthday this year. He still sleeps with her. Maybe I can make it until HS graduation before I have to replace it again.
oh my poor sweet dear. I feel your pain. We have Monkey. While i thought it adorable at first - it quickly became the subject of many a panic attack, much like you described. At one point, we lost it during an evening walk in our neighborhood when Thing 1 threw it out of the stroller and i didn't notice until we got home and it was time to be tucked into bed. And i did what any normal mother would do - i retraced every square inch of our 2 mile walk, in slo-mo, with a flashlight, until he was found. Yes, my neighbors DID think i had turned into the peeping tom of Maitland.
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