1 Mother 2 Another

As I’ve mentioned several times before, Maddie has a lovey that works really well for her – Silky. She goes through cycles of need: sometimes she only needs it for sleep time, and sometimes she’ll request it several times throughout the day as she gets sleepy, cuddly, or scared. Currently she’s going through a Silky intensive, and will ask for it at church or after a big play date. We’re so grateful for the thing that right now we don’t care if she’s still carrying it when she delivers her first State of the Union address. In fact, we’re planning on getting one for peanut to use later on, and see if it works as well for her as it does for her big sister.

Maddie’s been preparing for the big sister role- bossiness and mothering come easily to her (don’t know where she gets that . . .) and, while I’m sure it’s a developmental phase every tot goes through, she’s intensely interested in imitating Mommy. She loves diapering any stuffed animal she can get her hands on (Kitty wouldn’t hold still, much to her chagrin), cooking for her dolls in her kitchen, placing them in her toy high chair and “feeding” them, putting the dolls to bed in her toy crib, and so on.

What’s this got to do with Silky? Well, I was a bit concerned that Maddie wouldn’t understand that not all Silkys are Maddie’s Silky, and she’d be mad that Baby Sister was using “Maddie’s” Silky. So when my mom volunteered to make Dolly her own Silky, I jumped at the chance. We didn’t tell Maddie in advance, and unveiled it one night when we were both around to watch how she’d react.

Maddie’s Silky, I should tell you, is white on one side, with a pink-and-white pattern on the other, trimmed in white, and embroidered with her name on it in pink. When Mom pulled out Dolly’s Silky and Maddie got a gander, her eyes grew big as saucers. Here was a Silky roughly half the size, all pink, embroidered in white with Dolly’s name on it! How amazing!

At first, Maddie was confused. We’ve actually got two Silkys – exact duplicates – that we keep in even rotation so they wear down the same amount, and we’ve gone to great pains to not let her see both at once. So up until that point, Maddie had only seen one Silky on the planet. She promptly jumped to the logical conclusion – this other Silky must also be Maddie’s! My daughter began trying to carry them interchangeably throughout the night and kept calling it “Maddie’s Silky”. “No, no, that’s Dolly’s Silky,” we’d correct her, then offering her the original Silky. We’d tuck Dolly into bed with the toy Silky, wrapping the little plastic arm around it.

Maddie finally caught on and now only holds Dolly’s Silky when she’s “helping” Dolly with it. I’m profoundly grateful that she’s realized everyone is entitled to her own Silky and that not every Silky belongs to Maddie. Another potential sibling rivalry, hopefully averted.

And for now, it’s incredibly cute to watch her tuck Dolly into bed, say, “Want Silky? Ok. Night night, Dolly.”