I Miss Monster Sookie

What's a Monster Sookie?  There's probably two parts to that question. The first being, what's a sookie?  That's our name for pacifiers or soothers or whathaveyou.  I have no idea where the name came from, but I'm pretty sure I gave it too them when James was in the special care unit just after he was born and it was probably based on the sound he was making with the one the nurses had given him while he was there.

So what's a Monster sookie?  That picture over there.  Brenda and Steve bought one for James well before he was old enough to actually use it (it only comes in one size, which is, I think, intended for six-month-olds).  We didn't really get a lot of use out of it until just last year when I was Han Solo for Halloween and James got to be my Li'l Chewbacca co-pilot.

Exceptionally adorable.

Last summer we brought out the outfits again for the Ottawa Comic Con.  When I was wandering around just as Han Solo I had maybe a half-dozen people want to take my photo or comment about how great the costume was.

When I was carrying Li'l Chewbacca with me, I rarely got more than ten feet before someone wanted a picture or wanted to tell us how awesome we look together.  I knew who the star of this outfit was going to be before we went, though.

So what's up with Monster Sookie?  Sookies are now only for bed.  Have been since before Daniel was born -- though I'd planned to have sookies gone entirely by now, but the transition from only child to big brother has softened my resolve to ban sookies.  I digress.

Since sookies are only for bed, though, we've a well-established pattern that he can have two total, both must remain in his bed when he's out and about and he will place them in the same spots on his bed.  Regular sookie goes on Finn's headlight (that'd be Finn McMissile, on his comforter) and Monster Sookie goes either on Mater's tire or Mater's headlight.  When it's time for bed, he crawls in to bed and pops one in his mouth and grabs the other in his hand, ready to swap them periodically.  By morning he's lost them, usually, but as soon as he wakes up the first thing he does is look for one and pop it in his mouth.  I'll just leave this here...

Anyway, the other day he finally bit through the tip of Monster Sookie.  Not all the way, but enough that we had to take it away from him.  He cried.  Christine felt awful.  I felt awful.  I resisted the urge to explain that sometimes stuff gets broken and you have to let it go.  That's not a lesson for today.

Later on in the day he was playing on his motorized car, climbing on the hood and sliding down the front.  He had also slid one of his dinky-cars along the dash and was smacking the windshield to make the car jump on the dash.  We told him a few times to stop, then I had to be the heavy and tell him that if he didn't stop it, I would take the car away from him.  He gave me a look like he didn't quite believe me when Christine came up with the real winner.  She told him that if he kept it up he was going to break the windshield and we wouldn't be able to fix it for him.  She didn't make any connection to Monster Sookie at the time, that was quite out of our minds by that point, but it seems like maybe he did.

Eventually bed-time came, as it always does, and James fought it with all the strength in his tiny body, as he almost always does.  He asked Christine about Monster Sookie and she told him again that it was broken and he would have to make due with the two regular sookies.  Though he was a little upset about it, he didn't make a big deal about it this time.

I lay down with him in his bed while he was going to sleep, but he's a determined little guy and oftentimes I just have to give up and leave.  Last night was one of those nights.  Just when I would think he was asleep finally he would roll over and snatch my glasses away, then giggle wildly as he did his best to keep them away from me.  Daddy's just too much fun sometimes.

So I left him, asking him to try to go to sleep.  Maybe five minutes passed before he was standing at his door calling out softly "Mama?"  Christine went up to see him while I kept the monitor and sat with a sleeping Daniel.  When she got up to his room she asked him what was wrong and why he wasn't asleep.

As clear as day he said, "I missed you."

Talk about melting your heart.  I thought it was the most adorable thing I'd ever heard.  At least all day.

Then, after a minute, he said the thing that made me feel absolutely terrible.  "I miss Monster Sookie."

Poor little guy.  I'm not going to replace it, because it's past time we put sookies of every stripe behind us, but I confess my first reaction was to go to ThinkGeek and order him one with express shipping.

Eventually he did get to sleep, but not before trying to tell Christine something she couldn't understand and I couldn't make out over the monitor.  Something about a car-shield, is our best guess, though, and she thought it was probably him thinking about his car windshield and a picture of a rusted out car with a broken windshield in Are You My Mother?, one of his favourite stories.

So this morning, back to the normal routine.  Wake up, take care of my morning tasks, go wake up James in the least violent way possible, watch him go all Sgt. Apone on a sookie, then change his diaper and start him thinking about breakfast.

"What would you like for breakfast, James?"

"Monster?"

blink "What?"

"Monster pancakes?"

That'd be pancakes made with that pan over there.   Yeah, buddy, I'll make you Monster pancakes for breakfast.  They were pretty good, even though Christine makes them better than I do.