onetiredmama: Lost and Found

From our provider:

Rate This Article

0 Comments

It's my first big failure as a mother. Riley has lost her beloved Meow-Meow.

Her lovie is gone! It was a little stuffed tabby cat she swiped from my Mom's house. (Hide your stuffed animals if Riley ever comes over. She's a plush-klepto!) This little cat looked like my Mom's pet cat "Kitty" who died a few years back, and she really cherished it. (Yes, I realize we are very creative with our animal names in our family, thank you.) But my Mom stopped asking for it back once she realized it was permanently fused to Riley. She'd tuck it under her arm like a purse and carry it everywhere.

Sometimes she'd nervously ask "Meow-Meow?" when she forgot it was already under her arm. So the panic was quick to hit when we couldn't find it a few weeks ago. I figured it was somewhere in our house.

Riley taking a bucket bath with Meow-Meow

You know, not lost, but not located. But after pawing through mounds of stuffed animals and peeking under the couch endless times like it just might apparate, and even after checking every nook and cranny, we cannot find Meow-Meow. (I did find a missing earring and a few magazines I never got to read, but no raggedy cat.) I imagine it's taken up lodging with our lost library book I Can Go Camping. Or the How to Break a Toddler's Heart book we could now write.

I know. You're asking "How could you let this happen!!?" Surely we had measures in place to prevent such a toddler tragedy. A system of checks and balances to make sure Meow-Meow was always within an arm's reach? Some sort of elaborate lockdown procedure? A GPS tracking system installed in her belly or something sensible like that? No, alas. We were very casual with that cat. I don't know how we'll answer to the Bad Parent Inquiry Board we're sure to face.

In our defense, we never lost Jack's lovie -- his beloved Bear-Bear. In fact, we have two of them. Bear-Bear is a bear (just to clear that up) with ties on his head to secure to a crib and a music box in his belly. You pull the music box and his legs curl up under him as he plays a song. I can't remember what song it was, because Bear-Bear, as it turns out, was not built to withstand a trip through the wash even if he had just been thrown up on by a sick toddler.

So we bought a second Bear-Bear to replace the first, but then Jack just insisted on carrying around Bear-Bear 1 and Bear-Bear 2. (He has a favorite, but I don't know which is which.) Bear-Bear 2 eventually succumbed to the same fate as Bear-Bear 1, and they stopped selling them by the them #2 was soiled. (OK, there was one left at a store in Ohio, but we couldn't chance a trip there to get it. It was on clearance by that time.

2 year old Jack with Bear-Bear and beloved binky

Full price, maybe we would have gone for it.) But the two we have are still much loved, and their location is currently known - tucked under the covers on Jack's bed, close at hand when needed in moments of insecurity or bumps in the night.

I feel really bad about Meow-Meow when I hear the lengths my friend Laurie went to, in locating her daughter's lost "Blankie." They were driving home from summer vacation, it was hour number 7 in the car and 7 year old Tessa pops her head up to announce "I left Blankie at the rest stop!" No one was sure which rest stop, but it was at least an hour behind them.

Laurie's husband was quietly mumbling, "We are not going back -- absolutely not!" But Laurie knew the years of therapy that could be involved if they didn't go back. "She bunches Blankie up to give it a head and pretends to feed it with a bottle. She loooooves Blankie!" she confided. So over the sobs and moans from everyone in the car, Laurie laid things out for her husband. "Think of all the things she'll lose in her life that we won't be able to do anything about.