Real

I bought Lucy new bedsheets this weekend. Actually – both kids got new sets. Connor is still all about Transformers and he’s clearly outgrown the Nemo set. (And don’t even get me started on his Thomas the Tank Engine sheets. He wore holes in them when he was younger.)

I bought Lucy another set of Hello Kitty sheets. Different design than what she currently has, but we’ve washed the old set so many times they’re starting to tear, so makes sense, right?

The thing is, she has a favorite blanket from that original set. It’s not a security blanket, exactly…but it’s hers. She’s had it since she was about 15 months. She guards it fiercely.

So the other night she started crying when I put her to bed.

Because she was starting to like the new blanket on the new set and she was afraid of hurting the old blanket’s feelings. She was seriously stressed out about – though I had to point out she still had the old blanket on her bed and there was no reason she couldn’t continue to use it.

But I find it rather fascinating that she anthropomorphizes  like that – because I used to do it too. (Only with my stuffed animals, something else Lucy also does.) I’d have to pat each toy on my bed before I left the room. You know. Just in case.

My dad came to visit this weekend and brought up a huge bag of old toys from my room. Mostly stuffed animals – many of which apparently had seen the rough side of the dog’s mouth at some point in their lives. Many are ripped and stained (even the ones that had been up in the closet. Just the normal degradation of cloth toys, I suppose.) Most are beyond saving, so they’ll most likely end up in the trash, but I have to admit I had a moment or two of looking at them and *remembering* and yeah – there’s still an element of wondering if they’re going to be bawling in the trash bag out back, a la Toy Story.

Or am I going to find that one-eared bunny on my pillow three days from now with a hook in a paw and whispering about “Where is my TailyPo?”

Suppose only time will tell on that account, though if I’m quiet here for a bit, maybe that’s why.

Still, I’m curious as to if other kids did it/do it, or if it’s maybe a writer/artist thing. I kind of feel like it might be – the idea of essentially creating characters out of toys and projecting feelings and emotions seems like it’s just a step below storytelling. After all, if a character is real to the author, he or she is far more likely to be real to the reader.