Living With Lovey!

When Carter was seven months old we flew out to BC to visit family out west. My wonderful aunt bought Carter a lovey (basically a teddy bear head with a small blanket attached). It wasn't his first lovey but it would be the first lovey that Pancho didn't destroy. Back then Pancho would destroy just about any toy or soother of Carter's he could get his little paws on. Luckily he's grown out of that!

I had read about lovey's and how beneficial they can be. They can be very comforting to a little one should they become attached to it. It's said to help regulate their emotions at a time when the world can be very over whelming. Usually a child will become attached to a lovey when they are around a year old, which is the same time separation anxiety tends to set in. A lovey can take any form really - a teddy bear, blanket, piece of clothing, or something like Carter had received. The good thing about the one Carter got was that it was small so it was easy to take places, plus it was from Walmart so it would be fairly easy to get another should this one ever get lost or damaged.

So the challenge began to get Carter to love his lovey! We started putting it in his crib at night and in the car seat with him on car rides. It didn't take long for Carter to take a liking to it. At that point we decided we better get a spare or two just incase anything were to happen to the original one. Unfortunately we couldn't find them at the walmart here so it was auntie P to the rescue when she was coming to London for a visit. She was able to snag us another two and bring them with her. Thank goodness!

As I had read, Carter started to become really attached to his lovey around a year old. We started to rotate them so that they would all be "loved" to the same degree and so it was easy to switch one out to wash it. After a while Carter become aware that he had three and loved them all equally. He was perfectly happy to bring one of them down stairs at a time, or to a sleep over at gramma and papa's, or out on the town, but at night in his own crib he loved to cuddle with them all. He was never upset if there were only two in his crib while one was in the wash, but if he saw the other one it would join the bedtime party. One moment that is forever pressed in my memory was when Carter was about a year and a half. I walked in to his room one morning to find him standing in his crib holding all three lovey's in his arms. He smiled at me, said "lovey's!" in a high pitched voice as he hugged them all. He was so in love!

To this day Carter still loves his lovey's. He has some other furry friends that he has also become quite fond of, such as Ellie the elephant, Hunter the doll, pumpkin bear, and most recently his little Christmas moose. But in a time of distress or despair, lovey is who he searches for. At night when he lays in his bed he will reach around for one of the lovey's and start rubbing it's soft blanket between his fingers or against his cheek. I go in to check on him each night before I go to bed and occasionally he will wake up but only to search for lovey and then drift off back to sleep before I've even left the room. During the day if he gets hurt he will search for both a hug from a loving adult and also a cuddle from lovey.

Just around the time Carter turned two he came to a realization. In the morning before heading down stairs with one of the lovey's, he started studying their faces. Every once and a while he would say "angry lovey" in an angry voice, and toss that lovey aside. He would then grab one of the other two (it didn't matter which one) and say "happy lovey" in a high pitched voice. He would then hug the happy lovey and be on his way with it. The first few times we just giggled but then we decided to take a closer look. We realized that it was always the same lovey that he said was angry and that lovey had one eye smaller then the other. Then about a month later he decided that only one of the other two was happy. So now he will pick up the angry lovey, say "angry lovey" and toss it away. He then picks up the not so happy lovey and say "no, want happy lovey." Then he will find "happy lovey," give him a hug and bring him along on his day.

He does this so much so that now when we are going out or he's going for a sleep over we have to confirm with Carter which one is the happiest as we aren't quite sure what his reaction would be should he be stuck with only "angry" or "not so happy" lovey. At night in his own bed though, he still loves all three. Gramma and I asked him the other day if we should just get rid of the other two but he said no. And even at 5am this morning when Carter was having trouble sleeping he looked to all of them for some comfort. After trying for a while to leave his room I finally agreed to leave Carter's door open if he'd stay in his room and try to sleep. He agreed. Not 10 seconds after I got back in to my bed did Carter come busting through my door with all three lovey's in hand. I brought him in to bed with us and as he layed between Dan and I he never stopped hugging all three lovey's!

Three very loved lovey's!