The Blankie

We're kind of a blankie family. I had a blankie as a kid. I basically hand-picked my kids' blankies when they were born, on some advice from more experienced moms that your kids will deal with separation better if they have a special blanket or stuffed animal. So all the kids have a favorite blanket, which anyone who knows us well will know.

I have this theory that we shouldn't make kids give up their baby blankets. Most adults I know have at least occasional sleeping problems, and maybe if we had just kept our cozy blankies around, we'd be alright. Pacifiers, bottles, sippy cups, and thumb-sucking - sure - those have to go. And there are sleepover and summer camp issues to work out, but really, who cares if a kid has an extra blanket in their bed? Not me.

That's not really the point of this post, though. The point is, I can absolutely see the need to keep the blankie in bed. It's pretty silly to see a preschooler carrying their blanket in public places. (Though I have to say, at one-and-a-half, I think DJ is the cutest thing ever when he throws his over his shoulder and drags it around like Linus from Peanuts.) Admittedly, we aren't very good (at all) about enforcing the blanket-stays-in-bed rule.

And we pay the price. Annie's the main culprit. She's lost two blankets already - one at the grocery store and one at a restaurant - which meant finding a replacement blankie, stat. We've held on to this last blanket for a good two years, but least once a week, Kevin and I have to scour the house at bedtime looking for it. Like tonight. Which got me thinking about all the weird places we've eventually found it, such as:

In the seat of our ride-on school bus.
In the babysitter's car.
In the lazy susan.
In the sippy cup drawer. (Yeah, we still have those, too. And DJ drinks out of a bottle. No thumb sucking or pacifiers, at the moment, though. [Shrug])
In an old purse.
In the compartment on the back of the driver's seat in the van.
In Ben Young's bedroom.
In the front hall closet.
In and behind the hamper in our bedroom.
At my parents' house.
Under the kitchen table.
In the toy shopping cart.
In her hand-me-down backpack.
Stuck between couch cushions.

Still, there's no end-date at the Wernet house for life with blankies. It's a good thing one of my skills is finding stuff.