lovey woes

In many ways, it's good when your kids have loveys. My boys each have one "special animal", much beloved, tattered, battered, and worn to a high level of uniqueness. Their loveys make them happy, give them comfort and security, and provide that extra dose of cuddliness to everything they do.

But then there is the dark side of the loveys: the need for strict, almost draconian rules to keep them from being lost or permanently damaged; the constant fear that the lovey will be lost, ruined, or simply fall apart from too much love; the need to periodically remove the lovey so it can be washed (and the related fear that each wash will be the last, and said lovey will simply disintegrate in the washing machine); and the big worry—what will I do if I have to replace it?

Charles's lovey I have a replacement for. And in a pinch, it might work ... although his elephant has a threadbare nose, a worn-out tail, and a broken music box (he rattles instead of singing. Too sad.). Frankly, I think Charles would know the difference. Greyson's, on the other hand, is utterly and completely irreplaceable. His lion bears no resemblance whatsoever to its original form, it's so matted, shredded, and hairless. Which is why I've been watching a recent trend with a certain amount of bittersweetness. It's the slow fade-out of the faithful lovey. A small parade of new "special animals" has come in—a puppy here, a puppy there, a pillow somewhere else—and now the lion sometimes gets left at home while the new friend comes along. The practical parent in me sighs in relief that maybe the lion will make it, and maybe if the lion is lost the reaction won't be as catastrophic as it once would have been. But the Mommy in me is sad that the lion's star appears to be falling. (And no, not because I'm extrapolating my own eventual fall in some far-reaching metaphor!) Mostly, I just want to hang on to the little boy who used to walk along clutching clumps of that poor lion's chewed-up hair as if they were precious diamonds.

(With the third baby, I got smart—when it became clear that the lovey had been chosen, I went shopping and brought home two other similar but not the same toys and have been rotating through those ever since. The first one is definitely the favorite, but the other two are accepted in its place readily. And since in her world, lovey in hand = thumb in mouth, loveys live in the crib unless special circumstances, like an imminent tooth, exist. I don't mind the thumb-sucking at this point in her life, but if I can keep it confined to the crib, so much the better!)