(no subject)

[rivka]

In mid-August, the kids participated in cognitive development experiments at the Johns Hopkins Lab for Child Development. (We do that a lot.) At the end, as usual, they each got to pick a prize: a T-shirt, book, or small stuffed animal. For Colin, I picked out a little white bunny with pink ears and a pink bow around its neck.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I should mention here that Alex never really had an attachment object, as a toddler. She had a stuffed dog she was fond of, but it was never the sort of thing where she dragged him everywhere and couldn't get by without him.

So I was totally unprepared for the way that this cheap little stuffed bunny quickly became BUNNY. Colin carried it with him everywhere. It hopped around, saying "hop hop!" in a high, squeaky voice. (Colin's commentary: "Bunny hop Mama head! Hop a toes!") He brought it to me to nurse at least six times a day. It developed grey patches around the nose and tail from being sent down the slide at the playground. He held it, a lot. "Bunny!" he would croon, cradling it in the crook of his arm. Then he would hold it out for me to feed again. "Bunny see-see."

Whenever he found the nearly identical little stuffed kitty that Alex got on the same lab visit, he dropped what he was doing and picked it up. "Alex kitty," he would say, and then march off to deliver it to her. You could tell that he didn't understand why she didn't carry it everywhere.

A few days ago - you saw this coming, right? - Bunny disappeared. We couldn't find it anywhere. We tore the house and car apart looking for it. I offered Alex two dollars to find it, in vain. Bunny was gone. Colin didn't cry for Bunny, but it was definitely clear to us that he'd lost a major source of pleasure in his life.

What would you do?

I called up the Lab for Child Development at Johns Hopkins, of course. Unfortunately, they told me, Colin wouldn't be eligible for another study until he was 30 months old. They bought the stuffed animals in bulk and didn't know where a single one could be purchased.

Buuuuuuut... they're developmental psychologists over there. They get it. So they suggested that we borrow a study prize against the time, eleven months in the future, when Colin will be old enough to actually enroll. And they took a bunny out of their prize cabinet and set it in the back room with Colin's name on it. We went to pick it up today.

"Bunny went away to have a bath!" Alex cleverly told Colin, trying to cover up the discrepancy between Bunny Mark One and Bunny Mark Two. But it was unnecessary. He knew what he was looking at.

He was perched on my hip. He reached out and curled the bunny to him with his free arm. He put his head down on my shoulder.

"Bunny," he said. Just that.

I couldn't see his expression, except as it was reflected in the eyes of the grad students who delivered the bunny to him. They looked like they were basking in the sun.



(This evening Michael found Bunny Mark One wedged between a rolling toy cart and the wall. How it got there, I'll never know. We've stashed Bunny Mark Two on the top shelf of my closet for now, but I have plans to rotate them so they'll both age similarly.)

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Dear Colin,

I once had a mole. I understand.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

*sniffle*

Mumup (who is to untutored eyes just another Snoopy) says hi to Bunny.

(edit: Alex is the best big sister.)

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

*sniff*

I'm such a sucker for a romance with a happy ending.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

My husband's favored stuffie was once fished out of a canal in Venice. My own never had such adventures, though often when I came home I'd find that my mom had set it up in funny ways (reading a book, having a snack, that sort of thing). They sit together on the guest bed in our apartment.

That's a special Bunny. Or Bunnies.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

iawtc. *snif*

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i took my blankie to college. not immediately, of course, but once i'd determined that i was enough of a rational adult to sleep without it and that other people had in fact brought their blankies/whatever to college, it came back to school with me after the next trip i made home. at which point i slept with it every night for the next four years.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

*whew*.

My daughter adopted a love object, and by the time we got an alternate it was too late; there was Bear, and there was That Intruder who simply wasn't the same.

That Intruder remains pristine white. Bear, at 20, is grubby, has had his tag resewn more times than I can count, and goes everywhere with her, including to college and to France.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Jeromy now has his cat, "Nala". (Nala is our fat cat, and she's about 90 years old and cranky, but Jeromy loves her to death and she loves him so much he is the only person she will tolerate. So, win-win. But, this is the Nala he can have at home.)

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Awwww :)

[puzzlement.livejournal.com]

I was always a bit jealous of my sister's attachment to Big Bird and subsequently Joshua Bear, but it came at a cost: the loss of Big Bird and aftermath are her earliest memories. I bought her a new Biggie for her sixteenth birthday and she immediately pressed his beak to her nose and cried.

The bright side of my other sister's Bargie is that you don't lose a whole blanket as easily, the downside was apparently introducing him to long term partners.

Anyway, may Colin and Bunny/Bunnies have many long years together.

[puzzlement.livejournal.com]

I was told of a similar rotation working successfully too: a couple I knew had had one, just one, night without their daughter's beloved Elmo and they learned their lesson, and bought another five to go into rotation.

[eeyorerin]

I still have my attachment object (sounds like many others do too). I'm glad there are now two bunnies to go in rotation.

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

I had a Snoopy doll whose nose had fallen off. It was the right size to wear Cabbage Patch doll clothes, even and could be frequently seen in them.

I took him to a babysitter's house (one we saw nearly every day), and forgot him over just a couple of days. One of the other kids took him home and no one made a damn bit of effort to retrieve him.

I was only eight. :(

I'm glad you helped Colin reunite with his Bunny. :)

[naomikritzer]

There are books that suggest that if your child latches on to a lovey, you always buy a second iteration to keep stashed.

This works GREAT if your kid falls in love with a Beanie Baby but every time my kids picked a favorite stuffed animal they wanted to carry everywhere, it was something impossible to duplicate, like they got it Trick-or-Treating from the neighbor who plays with one of those games that lets you grab a stuffed animal with a crane thingie, then gives away all the stuffies as Halloween goodies each year.

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

The amazing thing is that this made me tear up on the second read through.

My mother still has *her* bunny. Bunny sleeps on the shelf above her bed, but he's still there. (Bunny is probably about 60 years old.)

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

I, of course, still sleep with a teddy bear (or two) and my blankie, although my beloved Blueberry doesn't get snuggled with anymore, because at 30 her stuffing is starting to come out.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

My mother is seventy, and she still has her special stuffed dog.

Once her parents decided for some reason that she was too old to sleep with it. That night they found her fast asleep, clutching a piece of string. The other end was tied around the dog's neck, where she had obediently left it on the floor.

Nothing more was said about "too old."

[kate_nepveu]

I had to go to eBay to find a duplicate for SteelyKid's random Wal-Mart Valentine's Day doggie, though she hasn't bonded to it _that_ intensely.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

Ant loves Andy's bear, Tessie, that Andy got when he was a baby. He also loves Albert - my bear. Both are worn and not furry and rather sad, actually. But they are so well loved, they are beautiful.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Green Puppy was a present when Baz was born. Green Puppy travelled across the country several times, dancing in the back seat to Weird Al, receiving confidences about lost teeth and the excitement of starting school and the pain of moving away from friends.

Green Puppy has been lost for 6 months now, and it is a source of enduring grief. Toy Story movies are unbelievably heartwrenching when your lovie is gone. And we'd read Velveteen Rabbit, so Baz knew that Green Puppy was Real. I offered to make or buy a new one, but Baz shook his head sadly. The new one wouldn't be real, wouldn't know what the real Green Puppy knew, wouldn't love him the same.

The best coping technique we have come up with so far is to tell stories about what adventures Green Puppy is having right now. When last we imagined him, Green Puppy was hitchhiking to see the Grand Canyon.

If I could lie and convince Baz that I had found Green Puppy, I cheerfully would, but people who are 7.5 understand that you are lying to make you feel better, and agonizingly, they try to play along to make you feel better.

Long live bunny redundancy!