a heart-broken boy

My son has a blankie. He loves his blankie. His blankie was knit by his great-great-aunt who lives about 2000 miles away....you can probably guess where this is going.

A couple weeks ago, his blankie ripped about 6 inches in the middle. I panicked at first but then I managed to do a temporary fix and had hoped to get it to a friend's mom who knows how to knit (I've tried in the past...and failed...miserably). The problem was finding a day when I could get it to her, she could work on it and possibly even get it back the same day since she lives about an hour away. Plus, my temporary fix seemed to be doing the trick so it went from being a not-so-minor emergency to just something that needed to get done....

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, after the boy's nap, I went upstairs to pick up his room and bring him a snack when I noticed what can only be described as tragic. The temporary fix no longer was in place and the boy's blankie ripped another 8 inches...it looked like the whole thing could just fall apart at any moment. To make matters worse, we're supposed to go out of town for the weekend. And my friend...the one whose mom was kind enough to offer to help, has lost her grandfather (as in her mother's father) so of course I can't and would never call to ask for their help now of all times.

So, last night, the boy slept, more accurately, laid in his bed and cried without his blankie. It was the saddest, most heart-wrenching night. He would fall asleep and be down for a couple of hours and then he'd wake up and whimper off and on for a few minutes. Nothing I did helped. He just wanted his blankie.

The worst part is that I knew this day would come. I knew that no matter what a child attaches themselves to...blankie, stuffed animal, doll, etc...one day it will get ripped or lost or in some other way be totally unavailable to the child. I've told every parent I worked for as a nanny to buy and encourage that special thing in their lives to be something replaceable...something you can buy 3 or 4 of and have extras when the inevitable happens. Did I listen to my own advice? No. And now my sweet boy is the one paying for it. I'm hoping this weekend he'll be so busy during the day that he won't notice it's absence. Oh why didn't I just give him a run of the mill, Disney Store Donald Duck to sleep with at 5 weeks old instead of a one of a kind blanket?!