#10 Allison's blanket

When I was pregnant with Allison and registering at Target, I found an Amy Coe blanket on sale for $4 and thought - what the heck! It's cheap and pink...my kind of deal.

Allison was a binky baby for the first several months of her life. Well, really I'm not sure she liked anything when she was upset. There really wasn't much that calmed her down except walking her around. But, she did like her pacifier to sleep. I usually kept that pink blanket close. She seemed to like to snuggle with it.

When she was around 9 months old, she got Hand Foot Mouth. It was not much fun. For 3 days she wouldn't put anything in her mouth, including her pacifier. After that, she never really wanted it again. But, she did start chewing on her blanket. Not all the time, at first, but she quickly became attached to it. I ended up cutting the blanket into three squares (well, really two squares and a rectangle) and then sewing up the edges so she would have a travel blanket for the car, one for day care, and one at home.

Eventually they started to get gross. Because there were three of them, they lasted quite a while. And of course I washed them often. I wanted to try and buy another one for her. Unfortunately, the reason they were on clearance was because they were discontinued. You could only find them on Ebay and a few other sites. Starting bids were roughly $80!! My friends knew of my issue with keeping the blankets clean. My friend Katherine found a knock off Amy Coe at a garage sale that Allison took to. My friend Hillary had a white Amy Coe that she never used and just let me have it. Allison took to that one too. So, I rotated them.

The little pink one you see is a piece of the original. She still has another piece of the original that she keeps at day care. The white one is from Hillary, and the pink one...well, it got barfed on one too many times and it has been retired to a box.

As you can tell, they are gross. They stink. And I don't mean smell musty, I mean, you get up close to it and wonder who pooped. It's gross. Allison loves them. LOVES them. We laugh about how gross they are, but she never sleeps without them. Still putting them in her mouth.

Long story short - there was a misunderstanding about the little pink one a few nights back and we have decided she can't have it back. Jason thought it was in the wash and told her she couldn't have it. I thought he had told her she couldn't have it ever again (we had talked about taking it away) and consequently we headed down that road. She cried hard for 30 minutes solid, but eventually calmed down and hasn't talked too much about it.

The white one is the only one left at home. It is now causing a little bit of eczema around her mouth from all the rubbing and wetness on her face. We talked about it again tonight, and she knows the day is coming when it will have to go away. Maybe this summer. It makes me a little sad too. It's been around as long as she has, and it's part of who she is (well, not really, but you know what I mean).

I'll let you know how the final battle goes down.

I'll also keep you posted on the day we take Andrew's pacifier away. Holy Moly that will be a hard one!!

Val