Alison Sommer '05: Lovies.

Baby Ali and her lovies

I have had this song stuck in my head for two days straight...

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore

So when I sit down to write, I keep coming back to the word love. So let's talk about love. No, that's too sappy, let's talk about lovies. (Lovies, incase you aren't working off the same definition I am, are comfort objects small children carry around for comfort. Like stuffed animals or blankets or what have you.)

The famous Teddy

Growing up, my sister had a lovey. In fact I'd say she was the most attached to a lovey of anybody I knew, her Teddy Bear, Teddy. I had a string of lovies but never really took to one over all. I guess I had commitment issues, or maybe I just had bad luck. I lost my baby blanket, the one my mom made for me, in a hotel when I was 6. After that I did have a favorite cow puppet, Cowy (you can tell we were really good at naming things in my house), but he too was lost when I was 11. I still have some stuffed animals from when I was a kid, but nothing that I was ever attached to like my sister was to Teddy.

Actually, my sister is still attached to Teddy. She's now in law school. (My sister, that is, not the bear, Teddy doesn't go to class. I assume.)  I was always kind of jealous of my sister and her Teddy. It always has seemed like a special bond. Teddy was a member of the family like no other stuffed animal ever was. Teddy had personality. Teddy was (is!) special.

Sometimes I wondered if I didn't have one special lovey because I sucked my thumb. I was pretty attached to my tumb (har har) and I sucked it to an embarrassingly old age. As in, I was getting called out at sleepovers... I would say more, but it's... actually kind of humiliating. Anyway. When I had kids I was really, really sure to keep them off the tumb (seriously, the thing is like crack, I'm fucking 30 and I still sometimes want to suck my thumb. What is with that?), but I was really hoping they'd find a lovey.

When Kaylee was little I thought she'd found her soulmate in this pink and green striped blanket. As a toddler, she even made the teachers take pictures of it, alone, on school picture day. She called it her "boppy" and took it everywhere. It was great, because it always comforted her. But then I panicked. What if she ever lost boppy? So I went about bought like 4 more similar blankets, just in case. Maybe that was a jinx, because as it turns out, a fickle heart must be hereditary, and now she jumps around among handful of favorites, just like I did as a kid. Oh well. At least she's not sucking her tumb.

Dani and Jojo

But then Dani came along, and almost before we realized, she became attached at the hip to a teddy bear that looks remarkably similar to my sister's. The bear is named Jojo and goes everywhere. And for some reason I'm not scared. Jojo is a part of the family. Somehow I think Teddy's immortality has been passed on to this bear and he will be going along with Dani to med school (she's is very determined that she's going to be a doctor). Lovies really do take on a life of their own some times.

Did you have a lovey?