Dirty Dishes

When each of my three children were born, they received a special gift from their grandma. It was a blanket, and not just any old blanket, but a soft silky quilted blanket. They are made of tricot and hand sewn by some sweet as pie old lady that lives in a secret location. The secret location is necessary to avoid the masses from demanding more blankets than the old lady could possibly make. If word ever leaked out about these blankets and where to acquire them, there would be such a furor of orders that said old lady would most likely never recover. We live in fear of the old lady quitting the blanket business, and that’s not a happy way to live people.

Sunny was the first to get her blanket, being the first born. It was soft and pink, and touted as the best baby blanket ever. What someone should have told me was this blanket was actually more addictive than crack. If I had known about the addictive quality of this blanket, would I have done anything differently, you ask? If I had seen the real possibility that my children would have these blankets with them always, even most likely hidden under their pillow on their wedding night, would I have taken it out to the garbage asmfp? Most likely not. Babies need their crack too, people! It lets parents sleep a little bit longer in the morning. Sunny couldn’t say blankey, she said “kiki” instead. She dragged her kiki everywhere, until it literally fell apart. She got a new one, but never quite took to it the same way as the old one. She is the closest to recovery of the addiction.

Leo’s blanket was just like Sunny’s, only blue. When Leo was a baby he cried all the time. That is not an exaggeration. He really cried ALL. THE. TIME. This was most likely the worst time of my life ever, and I have little memory of it. I do know that finally when he was 7 months old he discovered the bottle and the kiki. Those were the only two things to ever make him happy in his little life, so he clung to them, hard. Two and a half years, 8 fillings, and one crown later I got him to give up the bottle. He still has his kiki, and it resembles a rag more than a blanket these days. He sleeps with it, and watches TV with it and takes it pretty much everywhere. In fact he just asked this morning why they didn’t allow kiki’s at school, and wondered what we could do to get them to change the no kiki rule.

Badger also got a blue kiki, which he loves with the power of a thousand suns. He developed a funny little habit with it too, biting and sucking on the corners. If he is tired or upset or just watching TV, he will sit and bite, suck, and then rub the corners under his nose. While this is so cute to watch, it requires that the kiki be washed frequently. The problem with frequent washings are that Badger has to actually be separated from the kiki for about an hour for them to take place. This is extremely hard to accomplish, because the boy has a built in kiki sense. He can somehow tell when I am about to put it in the washer no matter what great lengths I have gone to maintain secrecy. He will then scream “I WANT MY KIKI!” with all the anguish of a parent who has lost their child from the fold of the true and living church to the clutches of Satan. He will scream like that for the whole wash and dry cycle.

It’s what he is doing right now.