Monday, October 1, 2012

No D Day: It Was So Much More Than A Blanket ~

Thanks to Ninjabetic -  I'm not blogging about you know what!
Because today is No D Day, and many in the DOC are blogging about anything and everything but D.
To read what others wrote on No D Day, click HERE.
As far me, every year On No D Day I write about a specific childhood memory, this year it's all about my blanket - And don't call it a blanky, dammit! 


When I was a very little kid, I had a blanket, not a blanky mind you, but a blanket. A beautiful and soft white blanket.
And unlike Linus Van Pelt, I DID NOT carry it with me where ever I went.
But I did like to know that it was in the general vicinity whenever  I was home and before bed, or on long car trips with my family.
The white blanket was a thick, white cotton with a tiny white on white checkerboard pattern and it was incredibly soft. I'd fall asleep with the blanket (along with a bear named Honey and a sock doll named Sockey, who took the place of my beloved but forever lost velvet Piglet) over my head and looking at the checkboard pattern at night.
But by day, the blanket would turn into all sorts of things.
Things like a picnic tablecloth for the make pretend picnics I had on my living room floor, complete with cream cheese and saltines atop pink plastic doll dishes and Bluebird brand grapejuice in mini white cans with a bluebird on the front.
Other times and with a few twists it became a "Genie of the lamp" type turban, a magic carpet that I could indeed ride on, a " Super Kelly Cape", a bride's veil or a sleeping bag for my dolls.
Yes, that white blanket rocked - And for a little girl with a big imagination, the possibilities of what I could turn it into were endless!
But I think the affinity I had for my blanket kind of worried my mom.
Because one Saturday morning I woke up and the white blanket was gone - and so was my mom. And according to my older sister, mom he'd gone to the garden center to buy some bags of dirt and fertilizer and when she came back, I ran out to meet her.
Me: Mom, I can't find my blanket!
Mom: Kelly, you're in kindergarten and you start first grade next year, you're too big to sleep with a blanket.
Me: It's not just a blanket mom - It turns into other stuff.
Mom: Kelly, I have some bad news. Somehow your blanket ended up in the trunk of my car and I didn't realize it until the workers were piling the the bags of dirt and fertilizer into my trunk... and on top of your blanket - And it's ruined.
Me: Can't you just wash it?
Mom: Kelly, do you know what fertilizer is?
And for the record, I did not know what fertilizer was. And then in great detail, she went on to explain exactly what fertilizer was and where it actually came from and that even if she washed my white blanket 20 times, it still wouldn't be clean enough to sleep or play with.
So we had to throw blanket out - And it was a sad day in the Kunik house.
My mom never copped to intentionally destroying the white blanket, though I still have my suspicions to this very day.
And I mourned the loss of my blanket/ toy/prop for days.... Until my parents gave me a ginormous Holly Holly rag doll and my sister showed me the wonders of my mother's cedar chest and all the costume type of stuff that was stored inside.   But I think I'll keep those wonders for another post~

3 comments:

Colleen said...

Awww, I sympathize with your mom not wanting to see her daughter go to kindergarten with her blanket but..
What a great blanket it was!

Denise aka Mom of Bean said...

Bug has a blanket. It's her LIFE! We are in the process of limiting it's use to bedtime and when she's really, really upset about something and needs help calming down.
I can't see it ever going away, and right now I'm OK with that. Not that she'll be allowed to bring it with her to Kindergarten next year!! :)

Penny said...

My sympathies for your blanket. I still have mine, blue and faded. All my girls have theirs. Blankets rule.