Ducky is missing.  Again.  He’s been MIA for 12 hours– small, nondescript, grayish rag that was once a plush yellow baby present.  Two years ago Ducky arrived by mail, silky on one side, soft on the other, a sweet duckling head on a flat handkerchief.  Now he’s tattered and worn with holes–my toddler wears him on her wrist like a bracelet.

When said toddler was six months old, we moved her out of our bed and into her crib in a desperate attempt for more sleep.  The experts recommended a “transitional object,” a Lovey to help her transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar, to find security in a non-parental source.  I wore Ducky in my bra for a week so he would smell like milk and the baby would bond to him.

Bond she did.  First she chewed on him relentlessly, sucking on his nylon washing-instruction tag.  Then she grappled him in her crib as she settled herself to sleep, making noises that often resembled quacking: “duck wrestling,” we called it.  

Lately when I rock her to sleep, she turns him round and round in her hands like an old woman worrying a rabbit’s foot.   Ducky is now essential to every nap, every bedtime.  By day he’s dragged through the dirt, toted around town, and used to mop up spaghetti sauce.

Consequently we’ve become slaves to the duck hunt.  “We got an APB on Ducky!”  shouts my husband from upstairs as he’s putting the girls in pajamas.  It’s 8 pm and once again I’m scouring the house for a missing duck, searching every room and cupboard, trawling the hostas along the porch.  I’ve found Ducky hiding in the salad bowl, forgotten in a flowerbed, crushed at the bottom of a basket of yoga mats, stuffed in a toy mailbox, and sitting lonely on the swing-set, collecting dew.

“WHERE’S MY DUCKY?” wails my two-year-old, and I know I must find him fast if I want 45 minutes of Gossip Girl and snuggling before sleep.  Anxiety mounts as I imagine my light-sleeping, high-spirited child surviving a duck-less night.  She has an identical, brand-new duck (ordered online in the event of disaster), but she’s never shown interest in it.  “Same Duck,” she calls the replacement.  She puts it in her bed, then yells for Ducky.

“Isn’t it time we got rid of that thing?” asks my husband, holding up the ratty gray-brown scrap by one corner.  “He’s become a public health hazard.” 

“No!” I protest.  ” We can never get rid of Ducky!” 

It’s ancient history talking.  My siblings and I treasured our transitional objects, each elevated as sacred in family lore.  One brother had Beebee and wind-up Teddy; the other had Mimi and Purry; my sister had her beloved Doggy.  And I had Frog, a child-size, handmade quilt sewn by my grandmother–yellow fabric with green frogs holding umbrellas, its backing replaced repeatedly as it disintegrated from use and love. 

I can’t explain what Frog looked like– he was a sensation, not a visual experience.  I used rub his red satin edging along my cheek and lay him carefully over my chest before I fell asleep.  In fact, I did not sleep without Frog until I was 25, when my car was vandalized on an ill-fated trip to New Haven.  The thieves took my purse and my duffle-bag, where Frog was packed amidst my clothes, never to be seen again. 

Even as an adult I sobbed for hours imagining Frog mouldering in a dumpster, worthless to anyone but me.  He was irreplaceable.  Some scrap of my childhood was thrown out with that blanket.

What’s wrong with a person needing a special object to sleep with?  Some children’s hospitals distribute security blankets to their small, sick patients, a custom named Project Linus.  These “blankies” are a great source of comfort for hospitalized kids.  And pediatrician Dr. William Sears reassures parents that attachment to a blanky or lovey is not only normal, it’s healthy. 

“The ability to form deep attachments is one of the most important emotional qualities a child can develop,” says Sears. “As children are learning to attach to people, they also like to attach to things, and this attachment to people and things helps children ease into independence.”

Eventually our lost Ducky turns up in a collapsed doll-stroller parked behind the couch.  My daughter cries out in delight when she sees him, burying her face in his bedraggled fur.  Of all the various ruses human beings use to succumb to sleep– a nightcap, a glass of wine, an eye-mask, white noise, Valerian, Benadryl, Valium, Ambien–is one worn-out duck really so bad?

My toddler still comes into our bed every night without fail.  Anytime between midnight and 4 am she wakes screaming, needing Ducky, needing Mommy and Daddy.  She’s less than 30 pounds and the night is huge and scary. 

Zipped into her fleece sleeper, cheeks wet with tears, she wants the heat of a sleeping body beside her.  When she was a week old, she used to sleep on my chest like a sea otter pup.  Now I don’t know how to push her out in the dark waters, by herself.

(originally published in the Brattleboro Reformer, September 26, 2009)

Tags:   Baby · duck · lovey · Parenting · transitional objectNo Comments