My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 14th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate in posting a story per day.
Inspired by a post by Heather Zimmerman, on the blog HZ Reflections, about transitional objects.
Before Lily was born, my friends threw me a baby shower. Along with silly games and fancy food there were gifts. One of the gifts was a swaddling blanket from a fancy baby boutique — and soft cream colored blanket covered with an owl pattern.
When Lily was a newborn, we would swaddle her constantly, and the owl blanket was just the right size. As she got older, and bigger and we stopped swaddling, the owl blanket remained her favorite. It traveled everywhere with us in her stroller and on car rides.
As she got even older owl blanket went with her to preschool every day in her backpack. Even in kindergarten and into first grade Owl Blankie went with her, tucked into the zipper pocket. And now at eleven years old and in middle school, she still sleeps with Owl Blankie, tattered and stained, under her pillow (though she no longer brings it to school).
Before Jackson was born I didn’t want a baby shower. Instead, I selected a raccoon “lovey” from a baby store and bought four copies of it in case it ever went missing. Somehow I knew that the raccoon was going to be “the one.”
Sure enough, the little raccoon went to sleep with Jackson every single night when he was just a baby, and traveled around in the stroller and the car seat. One of Jackson’s first words was “lovey…” only he couldn’t pronounce it yet, so it came out “Duggie” —and Duggie remains Duggie to this day.
Duggie went everywhere with toddler Jackson, and whenever he got a bit dirty we’d just secretly swap him with a cleaner one. Or if one was left somewhere in the house and we couldn’t find it, we’d just covertly grab one of the others.
When Jackson was about three or four years old he discovered two Duggies accidentally left out in different parts of his bedroom. Instead of being upset he was delighted! “TWO DUGGIES!” he repeated over and over, and slept with both of them for a long time.
When he finally discovered there were actually FOUR Duggies in a drawer up high in his closet, he was ecstatic. If two Duggies were great, than four Duggies was even better.
Now, at seven years old, he grabs a Duggie from the Duggie drawer each night before bed.
These objects—a blanket and a stuffed raccoon have helped our family get through the baby years, the toddler years, and beyond.