Milestones...

I know that usually we think of milestones as being those big moments like graduating or getting married or whatever, but I got to thinking about milestones just the other day when our dear Daniel, crossed a threshold I wondered if I'd ever see.

You see, he left his beloved blanket at our friend and day care provider extraordinaire Jenni’s house on Monday, and we didn’t discover this until bedtime. And truth be told, traveling the 10 miles to Jenni’s house (especially when she would be trying to get her own boys to sleep) to get the blanket did not seem like a very good idea to either Susanne or me.

Let me tell you about Danny’s blanket. It’s purple and he got it as a gift from Su’s mom’s friends Peggy and Mike. He has loved that blanket since day one, and as soon as he could talk, he called it his “bye”. (Funny story, Benji now has not one, but two favorite blankets that he calls “bye” and “buh bye”.) Anyway, where was I?  Danny loves his bye and has slept with it every night since he was old enough to claim it as his own.

So, he asked and we told him he could take it to Jenni's, but that it was his responsibility to remember to take it home. Because let's face it, my brain is full and I was pretty sure I would not remember.

Anyway, fast forward to bedtime when he normally curls up on one of our laps with his bye, his sucking thumb (a whole nother blog post) and a good story, he asked us where his bye was.

Rut roh. Trying to quell the wave of panic that began to wash over me, Su and I both explained that he was going to have to use a different bye (like the one he uses at school). We braced for the worst.

He calmly told us which little blanket he wanted and proceeded to go to bed with no fuss.

I gotta tell you. We were really proud of him.

And I also gotta tell you I’m glad he forgot it on Monday night and not Tuesday night. Because that unusual east coast earthquake that hit yesterday shook him up a bit.  From the moment we picked him up at Jenni’s he kept that bye with him until he finally drifted off to sleep. And milestone or not, I completely understand that when you’re a little on edge, it’s nice to have an “old friend” to hold on to. 

Here’s to all of our purple byes.