If, 25 years from now, I see the kid in an Agnes Varda documentary about an inordinate fixation on teddy bears--or in an MTV documentary about people dressing up as Care Bears--I'll know when it started. This week.
From early on, we encouraged the kid to use one of the ten flannel receiving blankets or burp pads we got from my mother as her fall-to-sleep thing.
Then suddenly this week, she developed a deep concern for some of her stuffed animals. She now has to be snuggling one on her shoulder to go to sleep, and she'll start rocking them and patting them on their backs wherever she goes. It doesn't have to be the same one. She's got a giraffe and a doll in DC, a pig in NYC...that big organic puppy has become a surprise favorite.
Is this a developmental stage where a kid starts becoming aware of others besides herself? Or is she just mimicking our behavior? Either way, we decided I should stop wearing my Pepe Le Peu costume around the house, at least while the kid's awake.
Cinevardaphoto, directed by the awesome Agnes Varda, opens this week at Film Forum
Previously: Organic Toys for Earth Day
I'm a relatively new reader, so I don't know how old your daughter is. My 2.5-year-old daughter is mildly freakish about putting things "to sleep". One of her favorite games is to tuck all of her little animal toys into "bed". The bed can be any little piece of fabric she can find .. her blankets, my shirt pocket, the leftover gauze pads we bought to protect her little brother's circumcision, etc. She likes to play in our room while we're getting her and her little brother ready for bed. When WE get ready for bed, we'll frequently find her animals just under our covers. Some of those plastic ones are SHARP!
she's almost one.
When she got her first doll for Christmas, she'd hand it to one of us to pat, since that was clearly our job. Now she's taken it on herself.