My son had a ‘pink blankie’, but it wasn’t pink. It was white with polka-dots and boy was it in rough shape by the time I successfully got rid of it.
We are fortunate; our son (15 months old Tuesday, thanks for asking!) has never bonded with any particular piece of layette. He’s pretty fond of his Barney, he’s pretty fond of, well, a lot of things, but not fixated on any one item.
We are unfortunate; if he needs soothing, if he needs to cuddle something, if he is having trouble staying asleep, only Mommy will do. And she is 6 months pregnant, and getting pretty sick of this crap. “Go to Daddy! Don’t you want Daddy? Go to Daddy! Aidan, go to Daddy.”
Yeah, right, Mom.
That’s a wonderful story, Sauron. How sweet.
I still have my first stuffed toy. He’s 26. I’m never getting rid of him.
My youngest will turn 10 tomorrow. She latched onto one of the many blankest we were given way back when, an unlikely pink quilt/blanket of an odd size, too big for the crib, too small for the bed. I haven’t seen it this week, but I know she knows where it is. It still comes in very hand to her now and then. Never underestimate the power of the pink blankie.
A truely great story. I’d like to second the post to print it and keep it with the blankie. Very well written too. Thanks for sharing this with us. I also hope, truely, that she is suck a lucky girl. What a beautiful sentiment. I’m all misty eyed.
Great story, Sauron. You made be cry, and that is not an easy thing to do. sniffle
And I still luff my kid blankie.
Does the Pink Blankie have powers of Invisibility?
After all what would Linus be without his blanket.
When I was born I was given Dog. Looking at a baby picture of us in the crib he was a plump furry fuzzie animal.
cough 35 years cough later he is tucked away in a drawer threadbare and oft patched. I have fuzzie memories of taking him everywhere when I was a wee Goob. It’s more of family lore that of the sibling and all the zillion cousins I was the only one who had such an attachment to an object.
My son is 15, and Moosey is still on his bed. Right now. Usually Moosey is ignored even when the son is in bed, but… there he is. Moosey. Much beloved stuffed soft moose.
I figure, when he attends his Senior Prom, Moosey will be on the dash board. 
Cartooniverse
Thanks for the story. Ever read The Velveteen Rabbit? After all that love, one day soon that pink blankie may be real.
What a sweet story. Don’t worry, Sauron, he will be your baby for a long long time still, even when he isn’t.
And yes, I agree. Slowing down to cherish the moments is so very important. They’re only children for such a short time (even though sometimes it feels like forever). Mine is nine and I can hardly believe it sometimes. I used to wish for her to grow up quicker, but one day something clicked and I realized that these days are precious and they won’t last forever.
I’m 24 and I know exactly where my blanket is. It’s underneath this computer actually. Blankens, as he’s always been known, started out life as a little tiny sleeping bag actually. He was given to me by the nurses who work in my mom’s unit. Throughout all the hospital stays and surgeries I had as a kid, Blankens was there. When we went on trips, Blankens was there. He’s been to the Cayman Islands and on a cruise through the Caribbean. I like to cover up my pillow with him because he is invariably cooler than the pillow. The zipper is still visible in some parts, although it was covered up at one point. He’s gone through many revisions over the years, including a rather pitiful one that left him with a ridge down the middle. He’s beige and orange plaid, and there is nothing softer. All of the stuffing is missing. I have the firm and likely deluded belief that Blankens will last forever.
-Lil
The love we have for these objects, and the love they have for us, is astounding!
My Mum bought two little jumpers for me and my twin brother when we were just short of a year old. His was red and mine was blue. I adopted them in short order, and they could never be worn as I had to cuddle them.
My boyfriend in university washed one of them when kindly doing my laundry - washed it too hot and it all kind of shrivelled. Oh, the trauma. And he understood, too - you should have seen his face when he came to confess that his kind deed had turned bad. Just had to forgive him there and then.
My jumpers live in my knicker drawer now, so I still see them every day (I’m 39…)
Older boy has a pale green blankie which after 9 years is nearly more mends than blankie. When he was 18 months old or so and we realised how vital this thing was, my Mum suggested she get us a couple of replacements (It’s a chainstore cot blanket so there are a million clones.) Clever kid INSTANTLY latched onto the fact that there were other blankies, and had to have them all. In fact he learned to count with them, as he’d have to check they were all there - “one blankie, two blankie, MORE blankie!” Big mistake.
He is 9 and still sleeps with them all, and still brings them down in the morning, and still wants them in the car for trips out, and would still take them to the doctors or dentists if the “got to be a big boy” thing didn’t pull him so hard.
Little boy has never latched properly onto an object, as he has his thumbs. He was born a month early, wanting to suck his thumb, and has never stopped. He has a blue fleece blankie which he likes but that is mostly because he wants to copy big bro. He is “ambithumbdrous” which is weird - my left thumb was the only one which fit right in my mouth.
Ah… got to go and find my jumpers and stick my thumb in for a few minutes now!!!
My niece became attached to a torn flannel shirt as a baby. By the time she was 5, all that was left was maybe a square food of tattered fabric. One day she left it at Grandma’s house and the ratty piece of cloth was considered lost and gone forever. When she married a few years ago, my wife bought her a few traditional wedding gifts. I added a stool sample, a set of pink plastic flamingos and that ratty piece of flannel which I had framed. Yes me, her uncle, had hid that piece of fabric just so I could give it back some day. It now hangs over the fireplace mantle in her new house.
PS: the stool sample is a small wooden 3 legged stool placed inside an old film cannister with a label that says stool sample.
PSS: every family member that has gotten married in the past 25 years has received a set of pink plastic flamingos from me. A niece even asked that I not giver her any when she wed. I had them delivered to her hotel room in Hawaii while she was on her honeymoon. When FTD florists say they will deliver just about anything, they will.
Ahhh, I’d forgotten. We did also get a duplicate Moosey, for the day-care providers. That way, his bed Moosey didn’t get dragged all over the place.
He regarded it as a faint copy although it was in fact an identical item. There can only be one Moosey !
My 29yo brother is marrying his girlfriend when he returns from Iraq this year. The only wedding planning request he’s made is that his much-beloved stuffed animal, Doggie, serve as “ring bearer” (the pillow to which the rings will be attached). He was a weird, wonderful kid, who’s grown into an equally weird, wonderful man.
Sauron, ya got me sniffling over here. I wish my mom had held on to my Drowsy doll. She saw me through many a rough time.
I think that in truth this is one of the things that makes the experience what it is, the painful brevity of it, glimpsed mostly after the fact. If you felt like you had enough time to savour every moment, the experience would be something else entirely.
In addition to keeping a copy of that tale, you should submit it to “Readers Digest” or something. It is a real tear jerker!
Oh, that was beautiful, Sauron. I tearfully salute you.
Wow. Just wow. I think, in all honesty, this is the first thing I’ve cried at on this board, and I’ve read some pretty tearjerking stuff. This isn’t to say nothing else has affected me, but this was something else. Maybe its because I, as well as others on here, identify with it so well. For me, it is a stuffed dog, which has been called Spike for as long as I remember, though my swears I used to call him “Chip, Chip the dog” for quite a time before this. And it had to be Chip, Chip the dog. Chip wouldn’t cut it. I don’t remember it, but I’m told he came to me through my Aunt Helen. We were going through a nearby mall, and as we passed a toy store (I was somewhere between 1 and 2) I saw him on the shelf and made sure everybody knew that I wanted it. My Aunt Helen promptly went in and bought it for me, and he rarely left my side for years and years. Spike, as lisacurl’s Drowsy doll, saw me through many a rough time as well. He saw me through elementary school when I felt like teachers or my parents were being unfair, he saw me through middle school when it was the hell that middle school/junior high is for just about everybody (it was when my depression started, anyway), he saw me through high school when my heart was freshly broken by a girl I loved moving five states away and again in joy when I found the girl I’ve been with now for three years and no signs of slowing. He has been in the headboard of my bed for some time now, though I’ve gotten him out from time to time when things weren’t going so well. I’ve cried into him all throughout my life, I used to hold him when I was scared, sometimes I hold him just to be nostalgic and get that extremely unique feeling of happiness and sadness that only deep, deep nostalgia can bring. I’m finishing up my first year of college now. Spike faithfully stayed by my bed at home. I still go home often, but Spike never came back with me. After reading this and shedding a few tears, regaining composure, then writing this and having the tears just flow, I think this may change. He may sit on my headboard again, but he will be here.
Okay, this post has gone on a whole lot longer than what I planned. I just meant to pop in and add two or three sentances and came out with this. Again, nostalgia. What a strange and wonderful emotion that brings out so many other emotions within us. Thank you, Spike, for never letting me forget the past, the good times and the bad, and thank you for always being there then and in the future, through all the times my mom sewed you up, through the loss of your nose (I can only very faintly remember him having one), and through a small hole in your neck that has never been mended to this day. Thank you.