This kid has been all about creature comforts since day one. And probably somewhere around that first day of his life, he decided that our 2-3 year old queen size white goose down duvet was the comfiest. This presented a real problem on going - because of babysitting extra kids, he napped in our bed - and then it eventually became very difficult to keep him out of our bed at all. When he was 15-18months, he'd join us every night. After multiple lectures and disciplines, he changed his tactic. He'd just come in and steal our duvet. Right off of us in the middle of the night. It wasn't sleeping with us that was the main appeal. It was our duvet.
Sometimes he couldn't even wait for a midnight attack. He'd sneak in and grab it right after being put down - when we were pretending not to notice in the livingroom. It was hilarious to watch him, and astonishing, because this is a queen sized, and perhaps oversized queen, goose down duvet - it's HEAVY. Like, really, really heavy. Not to mention HUGE. And that chubby little baby, who we'd eventually refer to as the Blanket Ninja, could pull it off our very tall bed, wad it up, and carry it to his room - it was definitely twice his size, and weight 😂. We tried in vain to keep him from it, we really did, but he loved it because it was "so comf" (his toddler shortform of comfy).
What made us laugh too, was that the Blanket Ninja's strength only seemed to appear at night. He could stealthily move that massive Comf all over the place under cloak of darkness, but come daylight, and he'd tug at it in a "fake show of force" kind of way, and collapse. "Too heavy!" So during the day, it was Mommy's job to return the comf to it's rightful place (on her own bed).
One day, after seeing chubby baby, carrying a more than twice his size blanket ball of Comf "secretly" through the hall to his own bed, Daddy had ultimate pitty over the boy and much to Mommy's mouth-gaping, head nodding "no!" dismay - He said "You really like my Comf, don't you" "yeth" "What if you keep it, and I find another blanket" "okay!". And that was the end of the blanket wars. While we scrambled to go buy something else to sleep with, it ended up ok because at least we got to keep it all night 😂
The Comf has been well used. In fact, now that it's around 10 years old (!!!), it's more like a dingy beige, and it's started to run thread bare in places, and feathers come out. I've had to patch it now 3 times. Upon the last patching, I brought up the delicate subject...
Mom: Would it be ok if we bought you a new Comf? It could be just like this one, only new
Grey, casually: Oh, sure. That's fine. As long as it's comfy and cold
Mom: It can even be white!
Grey: Yah, ok. I mean, but we're still keeping this one
Mom: We...we are?
Grey, in an "of course" matter of fact tone: Yah. I could use the new one sometimes, maybe I could keep this one in my closet and only use it some of the time.
Mom: Ohhhh, welllll...
Grey: I mean, maybe like, on my birthday, I'll use this one or something. But we have to keep it, you know, for the memories
Naturally - the memories. Of a chubby little boy toting around a queen sized duvet. 💙
(all pics are from the 15-24 month range, except the last few, taken last night. I got to thinking that maybe we don't have any pics of him, and his Comf. So I took some for "the memories")