Kids and Their Loveys #mommyfail

When my oldest was a toddler, my mom and I were out with him at Toys R Us.  We were walking through the store, and came upon a wall of stuffed animals.  My mom saw a cute monkey (it was a hand puppet, had a long tail and if you squeezed his head he made a monkey sound). She picked it up and showed it to Mr. J and he was hooked.

She bought it for him and it became his "lovey".  He slept with it, he cuddled with it and he brought it with us in the car almost anywhere we went. He always seemed to hold it by the tail - it was never used as a puppet.   He loved that monkey so much, and when he was 2.5 ended up with a tummy bug and vomited all over it. Because of the voice box, I couldn't put it in the washer and dryer, so I did the best I could by hand washing it with a mix of dish soap and vinegar/water.

Sound asleep with "ee ee"

I still wasn't comfortable letting him have it though. He knew it was being cleaned and would be a few days before he could have it  back.  When we were at Toys R Us looking for a coming home outfit for his baby brother, we passed the same wall of animals and he saw the monkey. He grabbed it and looked at us with big eyes "wha ee ee doin?" (he didn't talk much, and ee ee was what he called any monkey)  We let him have it and paid for it on our way out.  A few months after his brother was born, he happened to find the old monkey - he was so excited that he had TWO monkeys.

He ended up with another stomach flu a few months later (he was 4) and vomited all over it again - well, both this time (he woke in the night throwing up, and it was all over his bed and monkey).  I chucked the original monkey, and cleaned the newer one best as I could.  I am not sure exactly when it happened, but one day monkey stopped showing up around the house.  He was left in bed. Then, monkey somehow ended up in the laundry basket, and I found him when I was washing clothes. I put him on a shelf in the basement, and Mr. J seemed to forget about him.

A few months later (he was almost 5) hubby and I were going through stuff in the basement cleaning up and throwing out - he saw monkey and asked if we could chuck it ... I wasn't so sure, but he did it anyways.  Mr. J didn't ask about him, and every now and then I would wonder if he remembered but never brought it up.

Then, last week we had a friend over for supper and we were talking about lovey's (he saw that Mr. K was carrying a red sweater) and I mentioned monkey....later that night, Mr. J got VERY upset and started sobbing - he finally told me that he missed monkey terribly and wanted him back.  I guess he HAD forgotten about it, but when we were talking it brought it all back up.  I promised him I would look for a monkey, but that I didn't know if I could find one.

So far, my search has failed. He and hubby even went to 2 different Toys R Us locations and no luck.  I refuse to give up my search - even if it takes 20 years, I will continue to look for "ee ee".

Do your kids have loveys? How old were they when they gave them up?