I Should Have Let Him Keep the Car Cloth

Like most kids, Josh had a security blanket. It started out innocent enough. While coming home from Logan when Josh was still a baby, he would not stop crying no matter what we tried, until that is, we gave him a burpcloth. He happily sucked his thumb and stroked the cloth on his cheek. It was great. Anytime Josh cried, I could just give him a burpcloth and he would console himself with a little thumb sucking and cheek stroking.

What started out as something great, turned into something annoying. By the time he was three, he had picked out a favorite burpcloth. Before, any old one would do, but now, it had to be the "car cloth". If it wasn't that one, he didn't want it. Finding that thing became our life's mission. Heaven help us if we couldn't find it.

Well, the car cloth got to looking really disgusting. If you don't believe me, take a look at it for yourself. I was so ready for Josh to be done with this thing but he was not having it. And then one day it happened. We were in Maryland for Christmas break. We had taken the metro downtown and spent the morning. We got back on the metro and headed home. When it came time to get off at our stop, Josh asked where his car cloth was. We looked all around our seats and couldn't find it. Josh of course began to cry and I silently jumped for joy. Yeah! It was lost. No more car cloth. Sure, that afternoon was a little rough, especially at naptime, but Josh did it. He went cold turkey. No more car cloth.

That night, when I was getting ready for bed, I felt something bulky in my pocket. I reached in and guess what I found. Josh's car cloth. I then remembered that I put it in my pocket because Josh kept dropping it on the metro. I quickly stuffed it back in my pocket and there it stayed. I called Tim to tell him what had happened and he told me that I needed to tell Josh and give it back to him. Was he kidding? Josh was 3-years old and still sucking his thumb and carrying around that disease filled burpcloth. No way was I going to tell him I had found it. As far as Josh was concerned, it was still on that metro car, never to be seen again.

We had about a good month of Josh not carrying around anything with him as a security blanket. I thought he would soon give up his thumb sucking as well, but boy was I wrong. We bought him a new Spiderman blanket for school and that has now taken the place of the car cloth. He carries that thing around everywhere and it's huge. I have put my foot down on taking it out of the house though. I can't believe he went from a little burpcloth to this huge blanket. I should have let him keep the car cloth. At least it would have eventually disintegrated.