50

My Favorite Thing

in Family, Life

This week’s Friday Flashback is all about favorite items from childhood. Please focus your attention to the following photo:

blankie.jpg

What is this raggedy, waffle-weaved piece of fabric? And why is it the shape of Nevada?

Friends, this is my blankie. Or, more specifically, what’s left of my blankie. (8 square inches.)

Once pale yellow with satin edges, I slept with this bad boy for 6 or 7 years of my life, until the fateful day when my parents told me it was time to say goodbye.

Say goodbye?! To my blankie?! The one that I escorted around the house all day? The blankie that I rubbed across my face when I was sad and lonely? The one that I slept with wrapped around my pillow to ensure constant face-to-blankie interaction every night of my LIFE?

I wasn’t going down without a fight. I wanted an explanation! A parental mission statement including, but not limited to, how throwing away a harmless blanket would better my life!

Or so I thought.

I threw my beloved blankie in the trash at the promise of a Dilly Bar.

A 39-cent Dilly Bar from Dairy Queen.

Whoorl: Poster Girl for Bribery.

However, as my parents were loading my little sister into the car for our Dairy Queen extravaganza, I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off a small corner of the blanket.

(HA! A blankie AND a Dilly Bar! I outsmarted The Man! TAKE THAT!)

So, I’ve had this piece of blanket for my entire life. I don’t sleep with it or have any interaction with it really; it just sits in the closet with my sweaters, but I would be absolutely crushed if I ever lost it.

What’s your favorite childhood item? If you blog about it, be sure and leave a link in my comments so we can read it. In the meantime, check out these other childhood faves!

Girl’s Gone Child
Sweetney
Her Bad Mother
Mrs. Flinger
Oh, the Joys
Mamalogues
Izzy Mom

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50 comments

  1. janet

    March 28, 2008 at 7:24 am

    I confess I still have my blankie and I still sleep with it. (How embarrassing, I know) But it makes a really good eye cover when husband wants to stay up late reading! And I promise I throw it in the wash often so it doesn’t still have childhood funk on it.

  2. motherbumper

    March 28, 2008 at 7:28 am

    Way to stick it to the man! Dilly Bar AND blankie piece – congrats to you for outsmarting that bribe.

  3. Sizzle

    March 28, 2008 at 7:31 am

    It’d be cool if you could fashion that bit of cloth (shaped like Nevada!) into something you can see daily. That way it’d also honor it’s importance in your life.

    Woah. I’ve totally been watching too much Clean Sweep.

    I had this doll that I looooooooved. My first doll ever. I named her “Chubby” (hello, body image issues from way back). Sadly, I have no idea where Chubby is now. :(

  4. winomom

    March 28, 2008 at 7:32 am

    Do you know that my sorority (gah) sister/roommate had a blankie she slept with WRAPPED AROUND HER HEAD, and not only that, but SHE TOOK IT TO SHACK UP WITH BOYFRIENDS/ONE NIGHTERS. Now that kind of wigged me. I was sort of thinking that if you need the blankie to go with, maybe you shouldn’t be doing the shagging. I dunno, just a thought. I’m going to think of my favorite thing.

  5. natalie 42

    March 28, 2008 at 7:42 am

    Whoa, winomom, that is really freakish!

    My favorite thing(s) were my Winnie the Poo bear I got when i was just a baby and my blankie. The Poo Bear was an old school looking Poo, not the new and not so improved one. He has a bell in one ear and the sound of that little bell was pure comfort for me. I still have him tucked away in a closet. From from the reaches of my beast of a pup. My blankie was actually my cousins blankie. He died before I ever came along, then his mother died a year later. MY mother had made the blankie for him and it was returned to her after my aunt passed away. my aunt and my mother were very close and I guess my uncle thought it would be good for my mother to have it. I found it one day and clung to it like a mad woman. She let me keep it. It is such a sweet little blue blankie with bright yellow, puffy ducks all over it with a cute frilly edge. I love it. I never got to meet my aunt either so its kind of a nice connection for me.

    Brava on the Dilly Bar AND blankie keepsakes!

  6. Lyndsay

    March 28, 2008 at 7:42 am

    I turn 29 tomorrow and still sleep every night with Oatie, my small, nubby, brown teddy bear from my childhood. When I’m anxious or sad, I smell his head and an instantly conforted.
    He accompanied me to camp, college and beyond. He went on my honeymoon with me. My husband is resigned to his presence and often joins me in hunts for him now that my 18-month-old has shown an affinity for hiding him.
    Recently, I took a group of 16 college students on Alternative Spring Break…he came with me. And I’m not ashamed of him. Some people still need a woobie and I am one of them. I figure it’s a better crutch than, say, booze or crack cocaine.

  7. Clownfish

    March 28, 2008 at 7:47 am

    Dear WFW, I know I’m off-topic of the baby blanket but… I just wanted to say that it was nice meeting you and your little guy yesterday. It was good catching up with my ol’ friend SAJ and always a pleasure meeting someone new.

  8. Ariel

    March 28, 2008 at 7:54 am

    My cabbage patch doll- her name is Francis Teresa (I thought when I was a kid that all nuns had Teresa in their names so I thought she was catholic and would grow up to be a nun. Don’t ask me why:) So now- 26 years later she sits high on a shelf because I love her so. My 4 year old BEGS to play with her, but I won’t let her because I’ve already had to sew her arms on her. She was well played with when I was little.

  9. slynnro

    March 28, 2008 at 8:29 am

    I had one of those apples that you can move around and it plays music. It’s in my parent’s attic, I visit it on occasion when I am at home.

  10. slynnro

    March 28, 2008 at 8:30 am

    OH AND! My Joyce Doll. I had a babysitter/nanny-type-person named Joyce who created a doll in her likeness for me.

  11. andrea

    March 28, 2008 at 8:54 am

    I had a “cloffie” and a Raggedy Ann my mom made me when I was 4 years old. Like many celebrities, Raggedy Ann underwent plastic surgery because her face was thread bare and nearly falling off. I still have her but not the cloffie.

  12. kate

    March 28, 2008 at 8:58 am

    I shared my story on my blog, here: http://sweetpot8o.blogspot.com/

    Thanks for the memories. I need something to snuggle now.

  13. Dana

    March 28, 2008 at 9:14 am

    I’d set my cousin on fire if it meant I’d get a Dilly Bar.
    That’s so sweet that you still have a corner of it. Funny that it’s shaped like Nevada!

  14. Jora

    March 28, 2008 at 9:29 am

    That is so, so sweet!

  15. Kristin

    March 28, 2008 at 9:34 am

    If only I had a blog to post a picture of MY blankie from childhood…. sigh.

    After carrying it around r the better part of ten years, a blanket (originally 4ftx4ft) turned into a knotted ball of blankie strips. It’s in a box in the basement, but I would NEVER part with it. Can’t wait to show DD when she gets a little older.

    I think you should frame your piece :)