Fears

Bam is a fearful soul. I think he's always been this way. He is the only one of the five who ever had a security object of any kind. He has a blankie. It is a receiving blanket my mom made for him when he was born. He became very attached to it when M got here and it has rarely left his side since then. We have had full meltdowns in church because blankie had to stay in the car; each morning we reiterate the rule that blankie can go in his back pack to school, but it must STAY in his back pack at school.

A few months ago, blankie started to show some dire wear. (it's five years old, it retains none of its original flannel demeanor. It is largely threadbare and no longer remotely white.) Some of the serged edges began to separate from the dwindling weave of fabric and they caused knotting which led to tearing and Bam came frantically to me to fix it. We decided that since we can't actually return blankie to its glory and trying to stitch the torn section would further weaken the fabric, that we would cut off the ripped section and thus "travel blankie" was born. The idea was that now Bam could carry this pocket sized blankie around and leave the bigger remainder at home. Somehow that idea did not make its way into Bam's brain, because what has happened is that travel blankie AND blankie now go in the back pack, in the car, in the bed, into negotiations as to where else they will NOT go.

Bam also has worries with bugs (among other things). He has woken us on many occasions to clarify the exterminator's duties, to verify the unlikelihood that there are ants, spiders, mosquitos and/ or scorpions now making their way to his bed. We talk a lot about how washing our sheets and clothes and keeping our room clean will help keep bugs away, that mostly bugs want to be outside as much as we want them to be outside. We resort to small stretching of the truth (fleas don't usually go on people because we don't have fur, failing to mention the month or so on my mission where I was personally infested with fleas). Every night for the past month or so since CE found an infinitessimal scorpion in the kitchen, Bam has worriedly asked us his entire crawly litany of questions, much to our exhaustion with the subject and the only thing that eventually calms him is reminding him to pray about it and, well, blankie.

Well, one recent Saturday DH and I had a date night--the first in a long long time. We had left the reasonably mellow kids with CE and run some errands and made our way to dinner. We had barely put in an appetizer order when CE called to tell us that Bam was frantic. Blankie was ripping more; he was inconsolable and he demanded that we come home to fix it. I told CE that Bam could choose to sleep with blankie as is or leave it in my room on my table, say his prayers and go to sleep and in the morning we would decide what we could do. She didn't call back again, so we figured either reason or exhaustion won out. When we got home, blankie and travel blankie were in a gallon sized ziploc bag with the following label written by CW: "sowr [sew] [Bam's] blanky back together again." I imagined in my head Yul Brynner from the Ten Commandments: "So let it be written, so let it be done." And somehow the writing allowed Bam to sleep, even though it hasn't made it any more possible for me to reattach bits of five year old worry worn flannel back together.

I keep thinking that eventually Bam will outgrow his need for flannel comfort, that he will be okay on his own with less tactile sources of reassurances. It seems, though, that the world increases in its scariness (scorpions in the kitchen, bugs in the world that might come in his bed) and he seems to need to seek the comfort of blankie more as he gets older. I'm trying to nudge the direction he turns for comfort to the Source of all comfort, to remind him that he can always pray, even if mom isn't around, blankie is gone, Heavenly Father is always there for him. All that remains for me to do is to be ever diligent in teaching the eternal truths, the very nature of a loving Heavenly Father, the way to fill our home and our hearts with His spirit and His peace. For Bam is right, really, the world is a scary place. The very ground shakes beneath us; oceans rise up to envelop our homes; people die; disease and difficulties beset our every day. And yet. "Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost." (D&C 50:41-42)