Ellie's Special Blanky

Ellie's special blanky is very near and dear to her heart, and she seems incapable of sleeping without it. She's completely oblivious to the fact that it was actually made by a good friend for Adam. It is HER blanky.
At one point I sewed a couple of smaller, more portable versions of it, that could serve as a substitute when washing the original became a necessity...or in case it ever got lost. For a little while she accepted the substitutes without question, but somewhere over time she's become much more discriminating and cannot be fooled.

Not only will she not accept an exact duplicate, but she now has a special corner that is the object of her attentions. At first she must've just liked the way the silk binding formed into the corner, as she could be found rubbing her thumb and finger along a little edge at the intersection. Over time the rubbing has formed a small hole, first through only one layer of the fabric, but now through both. So now, she loops her thumb through the hole as part of rubbing her corner edge. Each week the hole grows little by little.

The kids have turned corner recognition into a game. Ellie gets into bed, they show her corner by corner of her blanky and ask her, "Is this your corner?" She giggles every time and declares yes or no at a quick glance, then laughs and cheers when her corner is discovered.

I keep wondering what will happen if there comes a day when the hole grows so big that it ceases to be a corner. Or although we don't let her leave the house with it anymore, except for overnight ventures, what if it ever got lost? I'm sure it would be a huge crisis in her life (and mine)! I figure she's got 3 or 4 years of intense attachment to it, if Emma's blanky/thumb experience was any indicator.

Long live blanky!