I always thought that "transitional objects" were toys that children carried around to help them get through toddlerhood (ie, transition from baby to little kid). I learned in a psych class in university that the objects have a more direct and immediate use in children's lives: they help children transition from one activity or space to another. Maïa had Clicky, whom she took everywhere. Solanne has Cat (aka, Vanille) and Baby (aka, Baby Rachel). Their respective friends became very important around the age of 12 to 18 months.
Then, around the time Sol turned 2, she expanded her group of friends. Suddenly, she started carrying around Jacka Monkey and the gorilla; Solanne calls them "the mommy" and "the daddy," respectively. Soon, there were a number of other stuffed animals involved, including a dog and Snowman (they're the regulars). One day, out of the blue, Solanne dubbed the group "ev'ybody." Now, if we're busy playing in the living room and call her into the kitchen for a snack, she first must gather up ev'ybody (it's a full armload for her), bring them to the kitchen, and dump them on the floor. I found this a really odd thing, to expand her cast of characters. And then I remembered Maïa.
Around Christmas two years ago, when Maïa had just turned two, she began asking to bring more friends to bed with her. The group became quickly established. There were five of them, a number we had to remember so we could find them all at bed time: Clicky, Dodo (a receiving blanket), Chick, Snowman (now Sol's regular friend), and Pillow (a little doll pillow that had been mine when I was little). There was no title to the group, however.
I'm not sure if it's just my kids who do this around the age of two; after all, many children don't even have one special friend, let alone a whole group of them. But there must be a reason for it happening around the age of two. For Maïa it lasted about 8 months. By the time we moved here, she was back to having just Clicky with her at bed. For now, "ev'ybody" is going strong at our house. There is one saving grace in all this: at least she doesn't take them all to bed. I don't know if we'd be able to find her in her little bed for all those friends.
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A place to catch up on the adventures of the sisters.
1 comment:
I can't remember if this was the case when my sister and I were toddlers, but by the time we were just slightly older (four or five, I'd say, going on up to age 11 or 1), we both had small armies of stuffed animals . They all had names, and there was a definite pecking order in terms of which ones were most important to us. I had a rabbit named Avokado (don't ask me where that came from... I'm told that I named him, but I don't remember doing so...) and a bear named Benjamin that *had* to come to bed with me, but I wasn't so concerned about all the others.
My younger sister, on the other hand, insisted on having most of her animals in bed with her...and not just in bed, but *in her arms.* I can still remember her being tucked in with this huge armful of animals - at least a dozen of them. We never knew why...until years later, when she told us that she'd learned in school that if there was a fire, you could only take what you had with you right at that moment. So she felt she had to make sure she was holding onto all her most beloved animals at night, in case the house caught fire and she had to leave - she couldn't stand the thought of leaving any of them behind...
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