The Marble and Other Unsafe "Lovies"

The marble.

How many two year olds get attached to a marble?

Before you judge me, just know that I got home from work one evening and found the kid with the marble clutched to his chest as if it was the fluffiest, sweetest teddy bear you’ve ever seen. I point no fingers at my husband. Really.

Sweet Cuddly Marble

When the kid fell asleep that night I pried the marble out of his chubby little fingers and hid it. But the next morning he remembered the marble and had. to. have. it. immediately. Or there would be a shitstorm in the middle of getting the older kids dressed, fed, lunches made, homework signed, dog walked, cat barf washed off floor, etc. There was no time for a shitstorm. So I handed the marble to the child.

(The voice of my beloved late Uncle Sam was in the back of my head: Better for the child to cry now then the adult to cry later. But the dog was about to take a dump on the living room rug. And someone was freaking out because he couldn’t get a sock on correctly. Fuck it, Uncle Sammy. I’ll deal with the marble later!)

The marble is not the first impossible small comfort item that my kid has had. Before the marble there was the little red Lightning McQueen race car. He had to have two Lightning McQueens at all times. You know, for symmetry.

I have had nightmares in which all I can hear is my two-year old wailing “AQUEEN! AQUEEN! WHERE YOU, LIGHTAQUEEN!?”

It wasn’t until I’d generously paid for a month of private school for one of the Disney Cast Member’s children via Lightning McQueen purchases (via Target) that the dear boy moved on to the marble.

It can’t be any marble, either, it must be The Blue Marble. You know, the one that disappears for hours at a time and is inevitably located under the refrigerator or in the dark dirty abyss that exists underneath our oven. I shudder.

Why does my two year old refuse to attach to a normal “lovie?”

Why not a blanket? A stuffed animal? Even one of my old bras?

Is it because said two year old is obsessed with nursing the “Shoon” and “Shoonahhh” with the ardency of a fast food addict sitting in front of a Beefy Crunch Burrito? Is it because he is so attached to these fleshy, barely still milk producing mammary glands that he rejects any other soft thing and instead insists on carrying around the beloved blue marble?

I venture to say: Yes.

I am weak in The Weaning Department.

I Will Fuck Up Your Morning

I am afraid to explain to the teachers of the synagogue’s Busy Bee nursery school class that despite its age-inappropriate, choking hazard nature, this little blue marble is actual a comfort item for this kid. It’s either that, or I figure out how to leave my breasts at school for the 2.5 hours he’s there.

So for now, I will continue to keep track of that blue marble. And I will watch that kid and his mouth and his trachea like a freaking hawk until he moves on to the next comfort item. Please, oh please, just let it be soon. And let it be big and soft and not attached to my body. How about my husband’s testicles?

*photo of Theo by David Friedman