My Precious - March

Anybody that knows me will know for sure that my son is home this weekend, and how happy that makes me!

He moved up to Bonnie Scotland a wee while ago and will be a resident of Edinburgh for at least 2 years while his girlfriend studies for her Masters up there.  So visits home are going to be few and far between.  It's his birthday on Tuesday so his trip happily coincides with being able to take birthday presents back with him. 

I didn't think I was going to be joining in with Storytelling Sunday this month as I had been so preoccupied with stocking up the fridge and cupboards with all his favourite things and baking all things that he likes that I hadn't found anything to talk about.  Until I remembered these:

They may not look much to you, but to me they are absolutely priceless.  If anyone dares to say out loud 'looks like an old bit of cot blanket and a satin ribbon stitched onto a piece of muslin' I will not be happy.  But I can't get too cross because um, well, ahem, that's what they are.  These were the things that comforted my kids when they were tiny, the things that they cuddled hard when they were upset, stroked while they went off to sleep and helped take away aches and pains when they were ill. 

Ribby was 'born' after I bought our daughter a dress with a pink ribbon tied in a bow on the front.  She took to sucking her thumb and running the end of the ribbon across her top lip.  Even when she wasn't wearing the dress, she would get it out of the washing basket or improvise with the silky washing machine label sewn into the side of any other dress.  So I figured it was easier to design a piece of fabric which was easily washable and easy to carry around, got a square of muslin and sewed a piece of ribbon to it.  One happy girly.

The other 'precious' is Patnie.  Patnie started life as a small pram blanket with a wide strip of ribbon across the top.  My son loved to scrunch up the satin in his fist as he went to sleep and it moved into his cot with him when he was too big for the carry cot and then into his first bed when he moved from his cot.  We didn't realise how precious it was until one night when it was on the floor of his bedroom he just stood at the side of the cot sobbing and calling out 'Patnie' and pointing at the blanket.  Patnie grew smaller and smaller as it got older and ended up being cut into halves and then quarters to try and preserve it as long as possible.  A tiny part of Patnie also found its way into the pocket of his big boy school trousers when he had his first day of school, just in case he felt he needed it at all, no one knew it was there, but he could put his hand in his pocket and know that Patnie wasn't far away.

The kids gradually grew out of needing them, but I could never - EVER - throw them away.  Too many memories!   

So you know when they ask you what you would save in the case of fire, flood or pestilance?  These two little precious things would be top of my list!

Now, pop over to Sian's and see what other Precious Possessions people are sharing.  Right now I need to go downstairs and rustle up a favourite sunday lunch before my other precious heads back to the airport for his flight home.