New Security Blanket, Stat!

April 14, 2008 9:27 PM

New Security Blanket, Stat! What do you do if you're a parent and your darling child's favorite toy has been worn down to nothing? Or perhaps you're thinking ahead and want a "backup binky?" You start a "Lost Lovies" thread, of course. Think of it as a hive mind for real desperate housewives looking for something better than a creative explanation as to why Sprinkles the Cow is suddenly MIA.
posted by Cool Papa Bell (20 comments total)

Okay, i'm a heterosexual female and still incredibly distracted by the boobs in that Potter Weasley t-shirt.

But cool idea.
posted by Ugh at 9:31 PM on April 14, 2008

Part I of the Lost Lovies thread here.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:38 PM on April 14, 2008

Did you happen to notice the news today as to how much money dear 'arry Potter made this year?

There will be NO futher word on that Harry.

HE is one of "them" now.
posted by LiveLurker at 9:38 PM on April 14, 2008

Awww. I find this quite sweet, actually. A little obsessive, sure, but I've seen the way some toddlers can SCREAM and SCREAM and SCREAM so I'm empathetic.
posted by Salmonberry at 10:23 PM on April 14, 2008

Boards like that make me wonder what MetaFilter would look like with animated gifs and avatars and signature files showing how many children we have.
posted by Locative at 10:30 PM on April 14, 2008

make me wonder what MetaFilter would look like with animated gifs and avatars and signature files showing how many children we have.

The SA forums.
posted by dersins at 12:15 AM on April 15, 2008 [2 favorites]

This strikes me as overbearing and creepy, not cute. Woobies are transient, and sometimes babies lose them before they're done with them. Normal parents deal, and they wait out the tantrums until their toddlers find their next favorite thing ever.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 12:32 AM on April 15, 2008

Aren't all these cuddlies/blankies and dolls the toddlers "transitional item"? The point of that is they will stop using them, when it's lost, broken or they grow out of it. Having backups makes no sense.

Tried getting my gal to love a special doll or pillow but all she wanted was me. Then we stopped the night-nursing. No transitional items, no pacifiers no nothing. She took it in stride.
posted by dabitch at 12:48 AM on April 15, 2008

As a child my wife flushed her little brother's blankie down the loo, claiming that the swirly water would wash it. Looking at him, I think he's still traumatised.
posted by Hogshead at 2:02 AM on April 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Step 1: Steal Blankies
Step 2: Sell "Backup" Blankies
Step 3: Profit!
posted by Poolio at 4:16 AM on April 15, 2008

I had a stuffed duckie that I clung to till FIFTH GRADE. By then he was almost stuffingless and worn slam out.

Respect the lovie, people!
posted by konolia at 4:44 AM on April 15, 2008

the SA forums

We don't have signatures? Unless you are talking about the BYOB or FYAD forums, which are more like chat rooms for the mentally handicapped.
posted by wires at 5:30 AM on April 15, 2008

Jesus, I always thought staring at that sort of needles razzle would render you sterile.
posted by Jilder at 7:32 AM on April 15, 2008

Erm, my "needless" I seem to be an "s" short there. It was a terrycloth sort of "s", we got it at a truck stop before the comment was born (in fact, I had it for another comment who didn't really take to it) so if you see one lying around, it'd be awesome.
posted by Jilder at 8:17 AM on April 15, 2008

We don't have signatures?

I don't know? Don't you? I make making a little joke?
posted by dersins at 8:32 AM on April 15, 2008

Even worse, where do you go when you lose your dog's Busy Bee?
posted by Man-Thing at 8:53 AM on April 15, 2008

I had a stuffed dog named Willie. My parents bought him for me when I was six months old at a store in Williamsburg (hence the name.) He was brown and white and floppy and I loved him. I outgrew him eventually but kept him around for sentimental reasons. When I moved out Willie went into storage in my mother's basement.

She eventually moved from house to apartment and I came over to help her pack. As we were boxing up the basement I noticed that Willy was gone. He had just disappeared.

My mother claims she didn't throw him out. But stuffed dogs don't just walk out of basements on their own steam. They don't just get up and WALK out of basements, mother.

I'm still bitter about it.
posted by LeeJay at 11:54 AM on April 15, 2008

A little obsessive, sure, but I've seen the way some toddlers can SCREAM and SCREAM and SCREAM so I'm empathetic.

Oh yeah. You wouldn't think a someone so small could exert such a tyrannical force, but they can.

I give you....

Blankie: A Cautionary Tale for Those Planning on Having Children

When my nephew "Liam" was born I gave him a baby blanket I had made for him. It was just a simple thing made of blue and white knitted squares sewn together.

That baby afghan became Liam's "blankie". Liam and blankie were inseparable, and although Liam grew into a handsome, healthy, little guy, blankie did not improve with age. In time it turned from blue and white to gray, and it was such a disgusting, stained, raveling rag that the mere sight of it made me want to faint. And/or pick it up with tongs and deposit in the nearest wood-burning stove.

One night at bedtime when Liam was about three and a half, he realized that blankie was missing. After a search of the house it was determined that he must have left it outside when he was playing outdoors that afternoon.

My brother and his family live on a farm. In southwestern Ontario. Their "backyard" is enormous. It was a winter's night and there were drifts of snow everywhere. It was dark outside, and they don't have outside lights on anything but their carport area. You can imagine how difficult it would be to find a greyish blanket.

My brother tried to take a tough-love approach and told his little son, "Liam, you took your blankie outside when you shouldn't have and you lost it and now you're just going to have to go to bed without it. We'll have a look for it tomorrow."

This was at 8:00. At 10:00 Liam was still screaming. My brother and sister-in-law had run the whole gamut of parental techniques (i.e., reason, sympathy, stern reproofs, bribes, threats, promises, substitutes, distractions). Nothing worked. Liam was inconsolable. He wanted blankie and NOTHING BUT BLANKIE.

My brother and sister-in-law soon found themselves outside ("Like a pair of fools", as my sister-in-law put it), armed with shovels and flashlights, searching the snowbanks for the lost blanket.

Meanwhile Liam stood at the screen door and screamed, "FIND IT!!!" [sob, choke, gasp, sniffle] "FIND IT!!!!" [sob, choke, gasp, sniffle].

They didn't find it that night. Liam finally passed out at about midnight after he'd been screaming for four hours straight.

Blankie turned up in the spring when the snow melted. They washed it and let him have it back. I would NOT have done so. After living through that hellish evening and after Liam had learned to do without it, I would have watched for it when the thaw came, smuggled it into the house, stuffed it in the fire and thanked whatever powers that may be that I never had to deal with a Liam-and-blankie issue again.

Liam is now 20 and a strapping apprentice millwright. My sister-in-law says she still has blankie put away somewhere. And that for many years now she has been cherishing a revenge fantasy involving Liam's hypothetical future wedding. She's merely biding her time.
posted by orange swan at 6:23 PM on April 15, 2008 [3 favorites]

Hahahaha. I want an invite to that wedding.
posted by dabitch at 3:32 AM on April 16, 2008

Easy to be harsh on toddlers and their lovies, but some of you are the same way about gronwup stuff like your car/Treo/wife.

I figure life is totally chaotic to little kids, nothing makes sense. Parents are the most solid thing they have and we move to new cities, get divorced, die, etc. Anything they can hang on to, literally, is a big comfort.

One solution is to do what my ex did -- take the scrap remnants of the old blankie and sew it onto the back of a new blankie of roughly similar cloth. It's the sense of continuity and survival that matters, not how worn out or dirty the damn thing is.
posted by msalt at 2:07 PM on April 16, 2008