Confession:
When my son was 3.5 he wanted to take his lovey for show'n'tell at preschool.
Well....*I* love his lovey so much that I came up with several very (sneaky) good reasons why he shouldn't... when the real reason was that I was afraid the other kids would make fun of him and his lovey would lose some of it's "magic" / total adoration.
I look back now and realize how LITTLE he was, and laugh at myself. Oy! He's 9, and his friends bring their loveys (stuffed friends, favorite blankie, etc.) over for movie nights or sleepovers. He would have been just fine. But I LOVED HIS BLANKIE too much to allow for the "risk" in preschool.
I still have MY bear (although my blankie after many misadventures shredded to it's last pieces when I was 5, but my bear has survived many surgeries and laundry trips and is apparently made of sterner stuff than my blankie was. Disturbingly enough, someone stuffed that bear with red fluff. Who does that?), and I'm 32. (Sheesh. I really am 32, aren't I? Time just keeps running ahead and not holding hands to cross the street whenever I look the other direction).
Thinking back; we had 'special friend' sleepovers in middle school where a requirement was to bring your favorite 'sleep with' toy or blanket. About 20 years ago, most of us had bears. But one of my friends had a wombat. The rest of us were very impressed. I might have blown this all off as "being a girl".... but....Years later, in the USMC of all places, I found out that most of those big burly guys have a thing for stuffed animals. They usually keep their REAL loveys at their parents' houses until they marry (and then they get a place of honor in their new household), but I'm tellin' ya... the stuffed animals those boys "bought for their girlfriends"? They usually did a tour of duty for a month or six in the boys' barracks first. "It's for my girlfriend" or "It's for my kid" is an instant "pass" (and also makes a toy inviolate). There is NO reason why said stuffies needed to be bought in Sept for xmas. Other than for snuggle factor.
So I may not get my wish. My wish for several years now (since I first got freaked out his preschool friends would snub his lovey) is that when my son DOES give up his blankie that *I* get it. I think to myself (lie, lie like a rug) that I'd put it in a shadowbox frame. In reality, I'm probably going to sleep with it.
To add more fuel to the fire: As some of you may know, we've been in and out of our regional children's hospital all spring and half of summer. A week here, a month there. Nearly every kid there (from toddlers to teens) has a lovey. They're not CALLED that, but that's what they are. The nurses and doctors ask if they "Have something special?" the kiddos would like to bring into surgery, chemo, treatments, wheeling around the hospital, etc., with them. SO COOL. My son actually has 2. All around Children's he gets wheeled about with his blankie and his 6 foot long dragon (from Ikea, errrr, santa claus). As SH said... loveys are PRIVATE. Well, privacy goes out the window in the hospital. Everyone has their special friends with them. Tattered, beat up, magical Velvateen Rabbits that keep them safe at night and when they're scared.
My 9yo, anywhere EXCEPT the hospital or my mom's house elects to leave his blankie and dragon at home to "keep them safe". But he still has them. And loves on them. And sleeps with them. Although they play "hide and seek" sometimes, and we don't PLAY hide and seek at bedtime ;) so they don't ALWAYS sleep with him. But they usually do. When they're not sleeping with me.