Lovey

Most of my friend's kids have lovies. You know, a blanket or doll that they carry with them everywhere. Something they like to have when they go to bed. Something to snuggle, cuddle and love on (hence the term "lovey"). My kids aren't like that.

When Blaine was a baby, David and I tried, and failed, multiple times to get him to attach to something, anything, and make it his lovey. The thinking was that if he had a lovey, he might sleep better and not have to be attached to one of us all the time. We were his lovey. As long as he had the tip of a finger or toe touching us, he slept. When he was really small, he would just sleep on us - chest to chest, he would slumber peacefully. The sleep was great for him, but not so great for us (especially if you had to go to the bathroom - oh the drama if you moved while the baby slept).

We have tried again with Kyra to introduce a lovey. Dolls, blankets, toys, anything. She likes dolls, but throws them forcibly from her crib. She looks at the dolls in her cribs like "who are these interlopers in my sleeping space?" and then tosses them and shakes her head as if saying "Be gone with you evil crib hoggers!" We content ourselves with the fact that she at least sleeps in her crib - a feat we never quite managed with Blaine. The crib was the most expensive, yet unused, piece of furniture we had ever owned prior to Kyra. She sleeps quite contentedly in the crib - and she sleeps through the night now. She's almost 15 months old, so some say it's well past time that she sleeps through the night, but her brother did not sleep consistently through the night until he was three. Yes, three.

Some mornings, after a solid 8 or 9 hours of sleep, Kyra will wake early - around 5:30 or 6 and will be ready to be up for a few hours. David and I trade off who gets up with the early bird and Monday it was my turn. We got up and hung out playing in the living room. After David had left for work, around 7 am, Kyra started looking around and yelling "BA! BA!" Ba is her name for Blaine. And, in Kyra's world, nothing is better than her big brother. Ba is the be-all, end-all of her existence and she wanted her Ba. A few moments later she's off to Blaine's room to get him. I watch her chubby little run/walk as she heads for his door, knowing that she won't find Ba in there. When I got up with her that morning, Blaine got up too. But only long enough to climb into my warm spot in my bed and snuggle his dad (see! we are still his favorite lovey!). She comes out of his room with a concerned look on her face and looks at me and says "Ba?" I point to my bedroom and her face lights up and she runs to my door, shoves it open and sees Blaine curled up in the middle of the bed. "BAAAAAAA!" In that one word, she expresses her delight at finding her brother. "BAAAAAA!" She runs to the bed and tries, without much luck, to climb up and get to him. I give her a boost and she immediately crawls over to him, curls up around his head, patting and kissing him and sighing softly "Baaaaaaaaaaaa". That's when it hit me. Blaine is Kyra's lovey.

Lucky girl.