sleep and the bellybutton

[flea]

Last night Casper got cranky and wanted to take a nap at 5:30pm (we missed the afternoon nap due to a bad transfer from my arms to her bed, following which we had an hour of serious crankiness but refusal to sleep). So I said okay, and put her down, and she woke up at 7:30 but didn't want to get up and didn't want dinner and eventualy went back to sleep and slept until normal wakeup time. That was weird, but I guess she needed some sleep. She has had a super-runny nose for almost a week now, and stayed home from day care Thursday and Friday because she had a really low-grade fever. We have had such an extended snotty phase that she has terribly chapped cheeks and upper lip from all the wiping, poor mite.

In bellybutton news, well, many children have a woobie. I myself still sleep with my Noween, who is the second of that name; the original was the head of a stuffed lion-shaped kleenex box cover belonging to my grandmother; the second was sewn by my mother as a replacement when I was 5, when the first was abolutely threadbare. Needless to say the second is pretty damn threadbare himself, at 28. Yes, I sleep with a decrepit stuffed lion head. My sister had a blankie and may still preserve the shreds somewhere, and my brother took the efficient route of twiddling his fingers in his hair as a woobie-substitute, which had the advantage of never having a lost woobie, but the disadvantage of coming downstairs some mornings with his hand stuck to his head due to inextricably tangled fingers.

Casper has the bellybutton. More specifically, MY bellybutton, which makes for a bit of a problem. It started when she was quite young, maybe a year old, and her hand wandered while she nursed, and would find my bellybutton. Since we stopped nursing, she specifically asks for my bellybutton when she is especially stressed out or trying to go to sleep. She is very attached to the bellybutton right now. This has its charming moments - in the night recently she turned to me and said, "Well, thanks for sharing your bellybutton with me, mommy." But it has its disadvantages - she has not gone to sleep without me and my bellybutton for about 3 weeks now, and it would be nice if mr. flea could put her to bed sometimes. I find myself wondering if they sell silicone bellies with nice bellybuttons anywhere, although I can think of no conceivable medical supply reason, and don't want to think of any Real Doll-esque reasons. Also, I wonder what she will do as my bellybutton pops and the belly gets big?

Comments

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

Also, I wonder what she will do as my bellybutton pops and the belly gets big?

Maybe you can use that to open the conversation with her about her impending sibling.

My brother co-opted my blue blankie when he was old enough to figure out he wanted one, so I wound up with a slightly larger yellow one as compensation. It was never really the same. I think my mother chucked them both, or maybe passed them down to my sisters, when I was six or seven.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

Emmett goes to bed with a full complement of stuffed animals, but for comfort he will play with his ear, or if he's feeling particularly tired he'll still play with my ear or his mom's ear.

I have some pictures of him as a wee pup, sharing this intimacy with my friend Dave, and also Phil the Gambler.

I had to stop him from twisting and yanking on his ear when he was younger because I was afraid he'd stretch out the ligaments and wind up with basset hound ears. Fortunately he's given up such rough play as he's gotten older.

[vwbug.livejournal.com]

I find this absolutely adorable. Of course, not my bellybutton, but still...adorable.

[holli.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who still hangs on to her woobie. I still have my ragged, much-repaired 20-year-old teddy bear, who's so old that his squeaker fossilized at some point in my childhood. And while I don't actually *have* to have him when I sleep-- he's been left home for vacations and summer camp since middle school-- it's awfully nice to have him around, you know?

[veejane.livejournal.com]

The blankie in question, you will be glad to know, is #10 in a sequence stretching back into infancy. (Childhood is rough.) #10 was acquired at age 10, and at age 20 was sewn into a small pillow that continues to grace its owner's bed. As with most 20-year-old fabric, it's more like an amoeba-pillow throwing off tendrils than anything else.

In lieu of truly durable inanimate affection-objects now, I have an extremely clingy cat.