SuzySaid - Greenwich/Rye/Harrison Edition

Sylvia is a journalist living in suburban Philadelphia. She lives with her husband, nicknamed Slim by a ranch hand out West - as in "Slim, those chaps are a little small, why don't you try these chinks?" Sylvia is raising three boys, not-so creatively nicknamed Thing One, Thing Two, and yes, Thing Three. Professionally, Sylvia writes about all kinds of things -- pop culture, technology, and business. Personally, on this blog, she writes mostly about things that interest her as a thinking parent on the homefront. Check out this blog exert and then click the link below to really laugh:)

It was spring vacation and it happened.  One of every mothers worst travel nightmares.  No, there was no lurker in the airport bathroom and we survived a week of skiing with all of our bones intact.  Even all of our bags and skis made it home.

But we are short one small blue and yellow plaid cotton blanket belonging to my youngest child.  Yes, it’s his security blanket, his lovey, his transitional object, his wubby, his everything.

After spending 5 nights in a slopeside condominium, he was readying himself for bed at his grandparents’ house in Denver.  He was crouched in his flannel insect pajamas pulling out the contents of his backpack – a set of colored pencils, a “Beginning Cursive” workbook, wintergreen Lifesavers, iPod headphones, Madlibs vacation edition, neon green swim goggles, and bubblegum.

“Mom, where did you pack Blanket?”

Let’s face it, if it was anyone or anything else, I would have immediately launched into my practiced monologue of, “if you want it, you pack it, you carry it.”  But this was a very young 8-year-old with freckles across the bridge of his nose looking for Blanket, without which he’d never spent a night in his life.

I froze. I had packed the bags and even checked under the beds while the family was on the mountain.  But I did not come across his blanket. It must have been left between the sheets over 100 miles away.

“We’ll find it.  We’ll call the hotel and they’ll mail it to us at home. Don’t worry.”

But I am worried.  It may not be found, and a replacement is impossible. The blanket was hand-woven by my mother-in-law while I was pregnant.  This bears repeating. The blanket was hand-woven by my mother-in-law.

Blanket has traveled with us to 26 states, 11 countries and 3 continents.  I say this not to make a pitch for Blanket as a guest star on Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous, but more as plea for leniency in the peer judgment department...... click the link below to hear what happens