Just B cause

When Hudson was a baby and toddler he had no comfort vices. Didn’t suck his thumb, used a soother for about 10 minutes, no special stuffy that he cherished and no one blanket that he loved. We tried to offer him these things, especially the blanket as when traveling we thought the familiarity of one special red blanket (made by my mother in law) would provide him the solace needed to adjust the bed jumping of a year abroad.  Nope, it simply didn’t take.

This would have been a concern if he bellowed and shrieked as we laid him down in his crib, cot, bed, dresser drawer, but mostly he was fine, drifting into a slumber for a few hours before occasionally waking and finding comfort next to us. As he aged, he became a fantastic sleeper (taking after his mother) and now, as a lean five foot two nine year old, I have to blast The Immigrant Song at 11 to get him out of bed in the morning.

Tasman, well, as you can guess, was a different story. He very early on adopted an attachment to blankets. First it was a pink blanket from my wife’s own baby days, again made by her mother. He affectionately called this one “pink B”. As pink B deteriorated into almost dust, he moved on to the blanket we tried force upon Hudson. He aptly named this comfort slice “red B”.

Where’s pink B? Where’s red B?  became the nightly anthem before we slowed down for stories and eventual sleep. As Taz moved from toddler into boy, the blanket dependence waned a bit and we told him on his 4th birthday that we would be giving the remains of these two blankets to a friend so their baby could use them. Truthfully our plan was to throw them away because they were getting pretty tattered, as my mother would constantly remind me on our visits.  

Red B and Pink B!

But then something changed. Once we realized his dependence was almost gone (in moments of sadness or extreme tiredness he would still ask where they were), we found our dependence on them increased. Throwing them away signified something to both Steph and I, the acceptance that our youngest was no longer an infant, a baby, a toddler. He was a little man with big thoughts and soon he would be asking to borrow the car or sneaking off to the park to drink jungle juice and French kiss.  

So we kept them. Pink B and Red B. Still kicking around Tasman’s bed for him to find in the middle of the night and sniff or suck or just hold. There is no true dependence; we do not have to take them anywhere to ensure a more consistent sleep. But when we are lying next to our little man, the last warm cuddle after stories, before he slips off (or we do, which happens often), our hands sometimes find one of the “B’s” and we grip it very tightly.