It’s odd how you can live day-in day-out with something (someone, my daughter would correct), and not think to say much about it. We got our new puppy Locke just a few short days ago, and I’ve already broadcast numerous photos and a bit of video of him. But no one really knows about Stella, and we’ve had her for years.
This is Stella:
She’s my daughter’s best stuffed friend and constant furry companion. She’s the one my daughter cannot sleep without at night, the one we scour the house for with increasing panic when we can’t find her. My daughter carries Stella everywhere, except to school, and her inclusion in trips and sleep-overs is naturally assumed. Stella is just there, always present, always included in what we do.
But what IS she?
I mean, obviously Stella is a brown stuffed dog. But she isn’t that to my daughter. She’s something else. Something more.
Security. Comfort. Constancy. Softness. Reassurance. Safety. Something else?
When I was around her age I had a stuffed panda — unremarkably named Teddy — who I had a similar sort of relationship with. I loved him to the point of near-deterioration, to where his red felt tongue was worn down to a pinkish nubbin and his glassy button eyes finally popped off. The eyes were eventually replaced with ones my brother fashioned by hand from construction paper and glue — white ovals with jet black circles for pupils that left him forever after looking out on the world with an expression of apparent amazement. And when the turn-key music box embedded in his chest finally died we performed surgery to remove it, a metal malignancy whose extraction left a Frankensteinian scar down his back. All of this was done out of love, love as real as any I knew then.
When I see children with dolls and stuffed animals now I can’t help but think about how hard it is to be so little and alone in this world. Perhaps the shock of our physical separateness begun at birth echoes on through those early years, a nagging but nameless anxiety we can’t quite shake. And so it makes a kind of sense that these stuffed things, these comfort-objects — if only by virtue of their solidity and our ability to physically connect with, cradle, and hold them — would make us feel less alone somehow. They are a child’s reinforcements. They are their tangible rejection of our inherent aloneness as humans.
In time, of course, children get used to that unshakable loneliness we all sometimes feel. The discomfort of their own singularity lessens. Eventually, my daughter will stand comfortably alone, as all of us do. But in the interim, Stella will be there, as long as she needs her.
And maybe longer.
My brother will be taking Elmo off to college in the Fall, and my sister took Baby Beans with her to the Berkeley dorms. Sending them both this post.
Love to the kiddo, the dogs, the cat and of course, to Stella. And happy M Day too to you!
I am 38 and I still sleep with my stuffed bear Bobbie. She is/was a polar bear(I think). She is in need of a neck brace and about $1000 worth of stuffed animal plastic surgery, but I love her anyway. I cannot sleep without her.
Love, love, love the post!
If I haven't already, remind me to introduce you to my Bun-Bun.
My mom threw away my Pooh Bear. THREW IT AWAY. This should have been a topic in therapy.
Love this. Awesome.
I have a bunny. He's just called Bunny. I've had it since I was maybe eight. My mom bought it to replace a moose that got lost when our luggage was lost on a trip. I don't sleep with him anymore. But I did for years and years. He sits on my bedside table now. Just a reminder that he's still there.
Each of my kids has one. A blankie too. I don't think there's a thing wrong with a little security. Not in the crazy world we live in.
Oh I love this post. My boys each have their own …. Monkey and Beru, respectively.
I have Pink Ted, who is male. I can't believe I never lost him, through all the moves and bullshit that happened. He knows EVERYTHING about me.
My son has never had a special object. He just turned four. As of yet, I fill that gap as his special thing, and he turns to me for comfort. I recently bought him a little Elmo doll on a whim and for 2 minutes it seemed like it might be special, but no… I am so curious for that day to come when he latches on to something, and to see what it will be.
I should send you a photo of my father's teddy bear named Oscar. My dad is 68 years old and Oscar has been a part of our family forever. About 20 years ago I bought Oscar some reading glasses which he wears proudly as he sits on my dad's dresser.
I am currently teaching my fourteen-month-old daughter that the forty-year-old Raggedy Andy is *mama's* doll, not hers.
I have Tiffany, a stuffed cat. She was from Santa, the last present from him, when I still believed. (Yes, yes, I know, she was from my parents. But I BELIEVED when I got her. It wasn't until many, many years latter that I actually wondered enough to ask which of my relatives gave her to me.)
She's been with me through everything, and I dare say there were a few nights in college where I cried and snuggled in to her still after some especially nasty breakups. She now has company sitting on my bedside table, in the form of my husband's special toys.
I still have my blankey.
I have a husband, two kids, two cats a house and I still have my blankey because 37 years later it still has calming powers.
Um, I still sleep with my raccoon, Rocky (yes, my parents named him and yes, they are awesome Beatles fans). I turned 30 a few weeks ago.
I love this post! Thanks Tracey.
41 here, still sleep with a teddy. Granted, I usually sleep with his nose in my ear so it drowns out the sounds of my husband's breathing. I had to retire my childhood teddy, Boo-Boo, because his head is about to fall off. I still bring him from the closet sometimes to chat.
My 12 year old daughter never had a lovie animal but my 10 year old slept for years with a pink Beanie Baby cat named Hee-Hee. We have 5 or 6 around here, she was always misplacing him. She hasn't slept with a stuffed animal on her bed since she was 6, says they give her nightmares. Good thing the same doesn't happen with our real cats.
I love that you still have your Teddy.
My daughter is more of a serial comfort object sort. There's always one, but it's not the same from week to week, or even day to day.
Hey! My sister (LisaG) stole my comment about my dad's bear Oscar! I didn't even know she was reading blogs anymore! YAY Oscar!!