Comfort items

Both my kids have their comfort items. That special thing they need to calm them when they are sleepy or upset.

JJ's is his blankie. It's a knitted blanket that my Grandma actually made for KK, and somehow JJ got really attached to. Now we don't go anywhere without it. He can be instantly calmed just on the sight of his blankie. You can see the change in him the moment he recognizes it. It's almost like the blankie is a person the way he interacts with it (him? her?).

When I realized he was attached to this blankie, I asked my Grandma to make up a smaller version of it for us to carry around with us. It gets a little challenging to bring a crib-sized blankie everywhere we go. But he instantly rejected the "mini-blankie" so his large blankie gets dragged everywhere.

Washing his blankie is 45 minutes of intense stress for the little guy and requires mommy to be extra creative with play until we hear the magic sound of the dryer buzzer.

KK's comfort item, however, is always with me. I can't forget it anywhere. It gets cleaned once-a-day whether I plan it or not. She can find it in her sleep, although she must come to our room to get it.

What is this comfort item?

My belly button, or "button tummy", of course. For nearly three years now, she has comforted herself by rubbing and poking my belly button. Before she can go to sleep at night, she must let each finger spend some time with my belly button. If she gets injured or has her feelings hurt, my belly button can fix the pain.

It's magic like that, sigh...