1 Mother 2 Another

I know I’ve mentioned before that
we’ve got two silkys for each girl – identical, and
rotated periodically to insure even wear and tear. We try to switch
them out every couple of weeks and wash the old one, but sometimes
we get behind and don’t notice it until the current silky is
practically standing on its own, it’s so dirty. And then
there’s trouble.

Yesterday was such a day – Mom
noticed Maddie’s silky had quite the smell to it, especially
where she burrows her nose for a snuggle, and swapped it out for
the clean one. Apparently the difference was hugely noticeable,
because when naptime hit I heard wails and screams from
Maddie’s room. About a minute later, there was a knock on
Cora’s door, where she and I lay snuggling and reading nap
books. In came a distraught, snot-nosed Maddie, nearly incoherent.


“Mommy, Gamma WASHED my silky, and the smell is GONE! I
really, REALLY wish she hadn’t washed it! I hope she never
does it AGAIN! If she washes it, she needs to not wash THIS
CORNER!”


Maddie threw herself on me, heartbroken, trying to come to terms
with this irreversible change in her life. Trying to make herself
understood, she sobbed, “Mommy, I loved my silky, and it lost
its beautiful smell!”


To my poor girl, that smell was sweeter than any fragrant flower-
it was the smell of security, and snuggling, and coziness, and
sleep. I thought, and said, “Maddie, do you know what makes
silky smell so good? It’s just you – it’s all
that snuggling you do. Silky’s only smell is pure Madeleine,
and the more you snuggle that silky, the quicker it’ll get
that smell back.”


She eyed me suspiciously. “Are you speaking
truthfully?” she asked, her litmus test for liars. I swore I
was, and she buried her face in her silky, working hard to restore
it to its former glory.


Note to self – swap out silkys more often, before the smell
is quite so “special”.