Cherished Childhood Chums

In honor of Sophie and her favorite squash, we’ve gathered stories from our very own EMUs about special objects they adored as children.

Pat Zietlow Miller, of course, found inspiration through the experiences of her daughter:

“I didn’t have any security objects as a kid, but my youngest daughter, Sonia, who inspired SOPHIE’S SQUASH by falling in love with a butternut squash, also was very attached to her blue blanket and a stuffed pig and, at times, those small bags of Gold Medal flour. She still has the blanket. The pig was, unfortunately, lost at a grocery store several years ago, and I swooped in to save the bags of flour before they broke all over the house. Parental love has its limits.”

Bags of flour–how quirky cool is that? Young Sonia gets bonus points for originality.

Like many kids, several of us toted around favorite blankets or stuffed animals. Joshua McCune had a stuffed bear he named “Rabbin” because he mistook it for a rabbit but couldn’t quite pronounce the word. Donna Bowman Bratton had a security blanket that became “quite ratty” by the time her mother pulled the plug. I had a favorite blanket of my own, a soft, pink number that had to be spread perfectly flat on top of my other covers when I went to bed, so I could pull the fluff off a piece at a time and stuff the fuzz balls under my pillow. That’s probably why it looks the way it does today:

Laurie Ann Thompson loved a stuffed turtle named Tommy T. Laurie writes, “When I was little, he went everywhere with me. I talked to him every day and slept with him every night. I loved The Velveteen Rabbit when I was a kid, mostly because it taught me that Tommy T could become real if only I loved him enough, and I knew for sure that I did. I promised him.” As you can tell by the photo of Tommy T in the present day, Laurie has certainly kept her promise!

Tara Lazar tells us, “I dragged my Raggedy Anne doll by the leg everywhere as a young child, and after she was no longer ‘public-worthy’ she sat on a white wicker chair in my bedroom, a place of high honor. I even took her to college with me. I still have her–she sits atop my youngest daughter’s bookshelf, looking down at us. I think she’s our protector.”

Last but not least, Jeannie Mobley relates the story of her son’s stuffed dog, White Doggie.

“Whenever White Doggie got too dirty, my son would stand on a step stool at the washing machine and we’d wash him with the lid open. Every time the item rotated past on the surface he’d say, ‘White Doggie is swimming on his back!’ or some other enthusiastic comment. White Doggie traveled and spent so much time with us that we talked about him like one of the family–I think at times we all forgot that he wasn’t alive.

“I will never get rid of White Doggie. My 18-year-old son cleaned out his room to move out this
summer, and asked if he should put him in the throw-away or give-away pile, and I forbade either. White Doggie’s a part of the family and a part of my heart because of all the great memories, so I guess now you could say I’m the one with the attachment to him. As I wrote this I started to write, ‘should put IT in the throw-away,’ and I changed it to HE, because White Doggie simply isn’t an it in my mind.”

What was your favorite childhood object? Do you still have it? Leave us a comment for your chance to win a signed copy of SOPHIE’S SQUASH!