My second favorite shirt

For those of you new to this blog meet Cloth:

For Cloth's history go click on the label Cloth down there on the side. Tiger loves Cloth and will be using him until he disintegrates completely. At least the bigger part of Cloth. Recently, Tiger gave the smaller portion to his favorite sleeping buddy, Puppy. Tiger can't go to sleep until he and Puppy both have their Cloth.







Even before Blanket was born I knew which of my many shirts I was going to give to him for his "cloth." Somewhere along the way that cloth picked up the name "Wa-Wa" and he loves it. He isn't quite as attached to Wa-Wa as Tiger is to Cloth, but it is loved too. I did remove the collar from the shirt, and it had 5 or 6 small holes before it became Blanket's property. All the rest of the damage is 15 months worth of love. As you can see, he didn't even want me to photograph it, he just wanted to hold it for himself.
Wa-Wa started life as a t-shirt that I picked up at 2001 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, CA. It was a short weekend trip B.A.R. and I took while we were dating, and before we were engaged. I loved that shirt. It was my second favorite shirt and has become an inseperable part of Blanket and his bedtime. Oh, and he can't play peek-a-boo without it.

Cloth update

That's the newest picture of cloth. Tiger doesn't usually take it to bed anymore, but I am not quite sure he is ready to give it up completely. The top portion really did used to be the sleeves and chest section of a shirt, though they don't resemble that anymore. I have to spend effort to find both sections these days because Tiger will bring them to our room, or downstairs and forget where he put them for days at a time.

I was thinking about what I was going to do with it when I took it away, or Tiger gave it up. I think I will seal it in a ziploc bag and keep it for him. When he is older he can decide what he wants to do with it. I think I should just have it disappear for a few decades until he understands the value of holding on to sentimental things.

Maybe I'll never take it away and it will just completely disintegrate and will never be kept for posterity. Thoughts?

What's new

Our little Blanket man likes to sit.  He can actually sit for 5 minutes or so if he concentrates.  If I prop him on the couch he will actually pull himself into a sitting position and sit for quite a while. 

Tiger can get out of his bedroom.  I know I wrote about this before, but now he can unlock the door and get out.  There is no stopping him.  After the 5th time he got up last night I finally figured out how to get him to stay in his room.  I just take away cloth!  For nap time today I had to take it all away (in 2 steps) but then he got the message. I did discuss with B.A.R. turning his doorknob around so that he is conventionally locked into his room, but locking our kids in their rooms is not something we really want. 

I gave Blanket a bottle the other day (his 10th or so ever) and he put his hands on it and tried holding it in his mouth.  It seems like magic.  Tiger didn't hold his own bottle until 10+ months (about a month after I weaned him).  He also didn't feed himself anything until about a week before his first birthday.  Blanket will suck an animal cracker to death if you just hand it to him.  How different my boys are.  

I have been working on my quilt, but the boys have been less than helpful so very little is getting done.  Ah, someday.

Broken

This is the current state of cloth.   The first night BC was going to bed after it tore, I put both pieces next to him as I dressed him for bed.  He said, "Cloth broken.  I broken it."  Once a day he reminds me, "I broke cloth."   He is usually such a stickler for things being "just so".  He closes doors behind me all day long.  He won't eat broken kraft singles.  If his socks aren't on just right he will have you fix them.  But he took the breakage of cloth in stride.  It makes it easier to find (I only have to find half of it).  

On other notes, he started using the word "want" and nods his head for yes, and he will even say yes.  These may seem like they should have been old news, but he was too busy saying elephant, rhinoceros, concrete mixer, excavator, Dada Ford Harley Truck, flamingo.  Today he even started to spell "water" for me. "W-A-" I started laughing when I figured out what he was doing and that distracted him.

We went to Bass Pro Shops today for something to do after we went to lunch at The Rib House for the best KC BBQ ever.  DH wanted to buy a pellet gun target.  Now he has something to do when he can't get out to the gun range.  Now he wants a new pellet gun.

Birthday Cake

BC was watching Barney this morning and they were talking about birthdays.  I wanted to try to make sure he understood what a birthday was so I reminded him that he got a bike for his birthday.  Then he turned to me and said, "Choo-Choo cake!"  We still have some cake leftover BL can't eat eggs (thus I can't eat them) and DH didn't like the frosting that I made.  The cake has been in the freezer.  I was ready to throw it away the next time I cleaned out the freezer. BC had cake for his mid-morning snack.  

Also, BC brought cloth downstairs this morning.  I looked closely, and it was only HALF of it.  It's official.  Cloth has been rent in twain.  I have to find the other half  so that I can take a picture.

Cloth update

Here is today's photo of cloth.  As you can see it will soon be in two or three pieces.  I wadded it into a ball the other day and noticed that it seems to have significantly less mass than when it was new.  It truly is falling apart.

I am a little concerned about what will happen when it does become more than one entity.  BC is a stickler for order about some things.  He likes things to be fixed, and doesn't understand broken often means unfixable.  I guess I will be blogging about that in a few weeks, after it happens.

My favorite shirt.

I don't quite have the photo thing down yet, so the photos are in the post below.

Any of you who have spent any amount of time with me since 1998 (with the exception of my mission) probably saw me wear my favorite shirt.  It is red, white and blue tie-dye and used to say U.S.A. Washington D.C. on it.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time with BC knows that this is his "special cloth."

I bought the shirt in October 1997 while on a trip to the East Coast.  I loved that shirt.  I wore it all the time.  The first time I know I had my picture taken wearing it was when I got my driver's license renewed in 1998.

I didn't take it on my mission, but I did when I went back to Russia with ILP in early 2000.

I was wearing it when DH and I went to visit his parents in August 2000 (long before we were engaged).  See Photo.

I was wearing it when we got new driver's licenses in MI shortly after we were married.

I was wearing it when we lived in Virginia in 2003, but by then all the lettering had worn off.  It was also starting to get some holes and come apart.  See Photo.

It seems I stopped wearing it in public sometime after that, but I still wore it for pajamas.  This is how it came to be in BC's possession.

One day when he was about 3 months old I was wearing it while I nursed him.  He didn't want me to put him down to sleep afterwards so he grabbed the shirt.  I simply slipped the shirt off and he was left holding it.  We used it every time he went to sleep after that.  Before I turned it over to him fully I did remove the collar (it was halfway out anyway) so that he wouldn't strangle himself.

It was officially his blankie well before his first birthday.

Now, when I take him to visit old friends they comment upon seeing it "I recognize that!"

In January this year I took a good look at the shirt.  It had a lot of small to medium sized holes and one or larger tears in it, but the sleeves were still very much sleeves  It wasn't until a month ago it really started to come apart.  See photo. I can see that the shirt will soon fully succumb to entropy, but until then it is a very important "cloth."  Which is why I am writing about it today.

See, I know BC brought it downstairs this morning after he got dressed.  That was the last I saw of it until nap time.  I usually go hunt it down for him while he gets in bed for his nap, and so did not think it strange that it was not where I last remembered seeing it.   I went to look for it.  I looked, and looked, and looked, and looked.  I went back each time after a thorough search of the house and told him, " I could not find it. Please, go to sleep."   I looked in the fridge, the pantry, all the kitchen cupboards, under every piece of furniture, behind every open (and closed) door in the house, in the car, in the basement, in the shower, in the dryer, and in every conceivable (and inconceivable) location.  I was beginning to think he put it in the safe!

BC still wasn't sleeping, so I let him out of his room after a couple of hours.  I asked him where it was and he couldn't tell me.  I called a friend of mine to see if she could dream up any other unusual locations that I hadn't thought of (and to commiserate, I hate feeling alone in my helpless mommy moments).

While I am talking to her (for an hour), I start looking in even more far-fetched locations (heat vents, garbage cans, etc.)  I casually flip over a pillow on the floor (BC hates pillows on the couch and puts them on the floor everyday).  Wahoo!!!  What was lost has been found!  It must have stuck to the pillow when I moved them earlier. 

I can now foresee the day that cloth is no more.  DH wishes it was today.  I know we will have a few long nights after it disintegrates completely.  I also know I will suck up a hundred more tiny tails in the vacuum before that day finally arrives.  I know I will miss it when it is  gone as much as BC will.  After all, it is my favorite shirt.