Okay, this blog has me literally laughing out loud. See the photograph of small boy clutching two identical monkeys? That could 100% be Whit. He has those exact same monkeys, and TWO of them, in his crib.
Much like Brene, whose blog that is, I thought I had learned from dealing with Grace’s passionate attachment to her brown bear. She needed that thing every single night in her crib. One night, the summer before she turned 2, we learned how desperate that need was. I had packed her bag for Marion and she had, unbeknownst to me, toddled over to it and removed brown bear (before we left). I didn’t realize this until we got to Marion. The whole day was spent talking about how brown bear was not with us, and that was OK. I took her to Toys R Us at the Dartmouth Mall and let her pick out any animal she wanted in lieu of brown bear. I thought we were OK. That night, I put her to bed, in a pack ‘n’ play filled with old stuffed animals of mine that were resident in Marion’s various dusty closets. She was clutching her new horse. As I shut the door I could hear her musing, quietly, to herself: “Brown bear? No bear?” I had an ominous feeling in my chest.
And how right I was. I think Grace slept about 2 hours that night, all curled around me (and as you know, I am not so much a fan of that while sleeping). I drove her up and down Point Road at 2am, contemplated driving home, etc. It was not a great night. To this day, when things seem like they are about to go off the rails in a substantial way, Hilary and Terence say to each other: “No bear?”
So, with Whit, I wised up. As soon as he seemed to develop an attachment to his little monkey, I rushed out and bought another one. I hid it in the closet. Somehow, within a few months, he had his grubby little hands on both of them. And to this day we need to locate BOTH monkeys before he can settle down to bed. He has been known to wail in his crib “My mon-keeeee!” when he only has one. The twin monkeys are absolutely essential to sleep.
The horrors we bring on ourselves!
