Blankie crisis averted

If you have spent any time with Jacob in the last year, you know that he has a favorite blanket. He absolutely cannot go to sleep day or night without it. I'm not sure how or why this particular blanket became "the one" but it did, and now we hold on to it as if it were made of pure gold. Mark and I have had many "what if" conversations about blankie disappearing and we really don't want to know the answer to that. A long time ago, I went looking for a duplicate blanket just in case and couldn't find it anywhere. I knew I had received it at one of my baby showers in the Fall of 2006 and it was from JCPenney, but whenever I went to a JCPenney and looked for it, I could never find the same one. I even scoured JCPenney outlets in case they carried products from past seasons without any luck.

Today I had a disappearing blanket scare. Jacob and I went out this morning to the post office and then to a morning playdate. When we got home, it was nap time so we went upstairs and jumped into bed to read books and sing songs. He immediately asked for his blanket and I realized (or thought) we had left it downstairs earlier in the morning. I went downstairs looking for it and could not find the darn thing anywhere. I checked the car thinking maybe we had taken it out with us and it wasn't there either. I looked in every room and started panicking. I came back upstairs and told Jacob I couldn't find it and asked him if he remembered where he had it last and he just had a meltdown right then and there. Mind you, he was tired because it was nap time, but I knew I was in a severe danger zone. Where was that blanket?! I felt so bad for him and frustrated at myself for not keeping a better eye on it. I asked him if we could sing songs and go night-night and he just kept saying "NO! I want my blankie!!! Blankie mommy!" I decided I'd go through the house one more time to see if I missed it before. Sure enough, I went to the back of our bedroom closet and there it was (it's a Texas master closet folks, and it's huge, and I had no idea he had taken it all the way to the back of it and left it there earlier that morning.) Ugh, what a relief! I came upstairs with blankie and it didn't take but 2 seconds for Jacob to fall asleep. He was so happy.

After this episode, I knew I had to take action and find a duplicate blanket just in case this ever happened again. I looked at the tag and it was barely legible after all of the washing over the last 2 1/2 years but it said "Bright Future" on it. I started searching the internet and could not find the same Bright Future blanket. I used all kinds of search words to find it..."Bright Future blanket", "Bright future JCpenney blanket", "Bright future multicolor baby blanket", etc. It wasn't until I searched specifically on "Bright future plaid pastel blanket" that a posting from ebay appeared and I found a woman on ebay selling the exact same blanket!! SCORE. It was the only one I could find anywhere so I grabbed it.

Hopefully this will keep our blanket anxiety to a minimum in the future. Oh the things we do for our babies...

Jacob with his blankie at 5 months (notice how blankie always appears with paci):



Jacob with his blankie at 11 months:



Jacob with his blankie at 14 months:



Jacob with his blankie at 18 months:



Jacob with his blankie at 21 months:



And the blanket I found on ebay (yay!):