Very Hairy Security

When I was but a wee toddler (and I mean wee in the true sense of the word, I was pretty tiny) what brought me security was my piddow. This piddow was a pillow case, the vessel was all I was interested in, the pillow itself be damned. As far as I have been told, where ever I went my piddow went with me. When I reached moments of great toddler stress/fear/sleepiness I would jam my thumb into my mouth, and while sucking contentfully until my thumb started to wrinkle, I would very gently massage the inside of my nose with a corner of piddow. Needless to say, this poor security piddow of mine had to eventually go to piddow heaven, it had probably pretty much rotted into a mere scrap of material, certainly not enough to stick into my nose comfortably.

I don't know what method my mother used to wean me off piddow, though I did receive a giant gorilla when I was a bit older. I named this gorilla four, though I am not sure whether that correlated with my actual age. I still have four, well actually Rohan now has four. He is pretty spooky looking actually, so my attachment to Four will most definitely not be passed down to Rohan anytime soon.

I myself firmly believe in the benefits of a child having something, may it be a blanket, or a stuffed animal, or even a thumb in which they are able to obtain a sense of comfort and security. I think It is important for them to have something with a strong sense of familiarity in which to hold onto when they need it, moments of hurt, fear, unfamiliarity, and something warm and fuzzy to curl up with in bed. It may mean that you have to purchase four of the exact same puppy (such was the case for Colin's brother) to make sure there is no moments of panic stricken searches just before bed.

Though We attempted to encourage Rohan to have what is sometimes referred to as a 'lovey' none of them really stuck. He prefers his mouse, but can easily go to bed without it and rarely uses his mouse as a sense of comfort. Rohan's prefered security blanket is my hair. In moments of distress, such as waking up in the morning, Rohan lodges both of his tiny little hands into my hair, kneading like a kitten. Once he has finished with his morning snuggle and we travel downstairs for breakfast (often he still has his hands in my mane at this time) I have the hairstyle of the coolest girl in school........... from the early '90's. A lions mane crossed my mind.

Most times he does just use my hair as his security blanket, kneading, teasing, gently tugging, curling it around his fingers or hands, often getting them stuck. Other times he uses this hair massage as a weapon when he is feeling extra menacing. He will get his little paws in there and pull without release. I have to jam his fingers open and pull my hair out of his hands, leaving him with a nice chunk of mama hair to play with on it's own.

This security measure is not one I am overly fond of. For obvious reasons, such as losing my hair to the cause, but for other reasons as well. For one, Rohan uses my hair to help guide him into dreamland. He may have his back to me and on the brink of drifting off, but there is always one hand slyly searching for a strand or two to twists around his fingers. Once that hair gets gently removed from his hand he jerks awake, searching, searching, until he finds a bit more hair, than he settles back down. How is that for a bad sleeping habit? For two, I don't actually like having all of this hair. I would like to cut it all off (though it is getting so nice and thick and shiny these days, one of the perks of pregnancy). I can't. It would be like throwing out piddow without warning. Cruel. Crap! I may need to search for gentle weaning methods!