Transitional Objects

Lamby was my special "lovie" when I was a baby. I don't know what ever became of my lamb but I can tell you that from stories it wasn't good. Lamby had at least one bout with the toilet and won. They told me that Lamby was loved to death.

When Madeline was 11 months old we anxiously started shopping for her next carseat. During the process we happened upon a bear that had been placed in a carseat, presumably by an exasperated parent. Being the newbies that we were we handed the bear to Madeline. I had recently read in my book of everything-a-parent-could-everp-want-to-know-and-some-things-you-don't that Madeline was ripe to find a transitional object. The transitional object was supposed to help relieve separation anxiety. Never before had she taken a liking to a stuffed animal but she hugged and loved that bear every minute we stayed in the store. We were suckers and purchased the bear. On the way home we had a discussion on what to call Madeline's new transitional object. At the time Ryan's little sister was dating a boy named Teddy. We didn't really care much for Teddy so we decided to call the transitional object "Bear" versus "Teddy" for obvious reasons. It took quite awhile to train ourselves to NOT call the bear Teddy but lo and behold we broke the habit and to this day I call bears "bear". We never told any of Ryan's family about this. I can divulge this fact now because Teddy, aka Ted, is no longer a prospective member of the family. When we were assured of Madeline's taking to Bear, we went back to the store and purchased another. I had read too many horror stories of lost lovies. To this day we still have two bears.

Annalise is now 19 months and I can't believe she has not yet selected a transitional object. We've tried many times to find her true love, but to no avail. We even purchased a bison from the zoo gift shop but she loves bison no more than any other stuffed animal in our house. Annie is not prejudiced against her stuffed friends. She loves them all. She has shown a slight liking for a bear that was given to us after Madeline's birth but she doesn't need him to go to sleep and will in fact go to sleep with no stuffed animals at all. I'm not sure what to make of her lack of desire toward transistional objects except that maybe I am the biggest fool of all: I am her transitional object.