Two Blankets

There are funny little things that your kid does that you hope you will never forget, but you know you will as they grow and change.

Toby's current night time routine is one of those things. Between about 9 months old and 18 months old, Toby would have nothing in his bed. No cuddly toys, no blankets, no binkey -- just himself with no distractions. If you put him in his crib at bedtime and it was encumbered by any outside objects, one by one he would push or throw them over the side. We spent a lot of time picking up toys from around the crib, because when he woke up he would want bunny, elmo, mickey mouse, snort and whatever other soft toy was within view in with him. We even had to let him fall asleep with no blanket on, wait for him to fall asleep and go in and cover him up - otherwise the blanket would be on the floor with the toys. Finally our friend Anne gave us one of those ingenius zip up blankets, from which there is no escape. That worked like a treat, and saved us from having to deal with the falling asleep/blanket routine.

Then all of a sudden, our boy became cuddly. Now, he cannot go to sleep without two bunnies, elmo, tigger, mickey, birdie and most importantly TWO BLANKETS. No, not one, not three, TWO. And, you must put one on at a time and count them as you put them on. One, Two! He will feel them to see if they are realy there. On hot summer nights, we've had to resort to the thinnest blankets possible so he doesn't sweat to death before it cools off. He is also stuck on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as his lullaby. He'll accept other ones, but we must end with Twinkle, Twinkle. And, the minute we think we're done, there's a request for, "Twinkle, Twinkle! One more time!"