Before he was born, at my baby shower, a friend of my mother's gave me a soft, plush Beany-Baby-type turtle. Baby Turtle, as he was called, lived a very comfortable life in my son's room. Little man wasn't much into stuffed animals and the few he had were mostly untouched until about a year ago, when he decided he needed to take Baby Turtle to school every day for naptime.
Every morning his lunchbox, shoes, hat, cars, sunglasses and Baby Turtle got loaded into his backpack and every evening they all came back out. I had done a smash up job of not losing Baby Turtle in the shuffle, which was not an easy task, considering the chaos that is my house in the morning and my very foggy state of mind. But I tried really hard. I wanted him to have Baby Turtle with him. He never had a security blanket or any other thing that he was attached to for very long. His interests burn passionately and hard for a few weeks at a time before they are replaced with something new and different, but Baby Turtle was a constant. I wanted to take good care of him.
At the end of last week as I gathered up his things I noticed Baby Turtle wasn't on top of his locker. I asked him where he was? His eyes shot to his locker and then darted to his backpack and back to the locker again. Then he completely fell apart. He sobbed and sobbed as he tried to tell me that he put him there after nap time. He knew he did. Really, he did. His teacher and I looked everywhere. Baby Turtle was gone.
All the way home I kept flashing back to that morning. There had been a brou-ha-ha about his shoes, when he got to school he didn't have the ones he wanted. I took things out of the backpack. I put things back in. I ran home and came back. Was Baby Turtle in his backpack that morning? I honestly didn't know. Which lead me to believe I had not packed him. Sure we would find him at home, I did my best to console him and re-assure him that things do get lost. That happens sometimes. Usually we find them again.
Only we didn't. He wasn't at home, in our cars, he wasn't anywhere. Then he had to be at school, I reasoned. Turtles don't up and walk away. But he wasn't. No block was unturned. Baby Turtle vanished.
Surprisingly, the following Monday came and went without a mention of Baby Turtle. As did Tuesday. Not a word. Although I found that while he didn't really seem to miss Baby Turtle very much, I still did. Not the toy, itself, but I missed the two of them together. I felt, I feel terrible because I think it's entirely possible that I set Baby Turtle down someplace and left him. I still don't get much sleep and my brain is cloudy most of the time. He wept and he wailed and he was so sad and I think it could have been my fault. (Yes the possibility exists that he was turtle-napped by some trouble-making, roaming gang of four year olds, but I have no proof.)
I googled Baby Turtle and I found one. I ordered it. It is scheduled to arrive today. I am torn between a shell and a hard place here; Part of me wants to give him back something that he treasured. He's growing up. Fast. At least once a day I look, expecting to see my little man but am smacked in the face by the fact that he's a big boy now. Big Boys need to learn life lessons. About how sometimes things happen that make you feel angry or sad or angry and sad and that you have to find a way to move through it and then past it.
Would you give him Baby Turtle 2.0? On the upside? He would be happy and I would feel less guilty. On the downside, he may lose other things that I can't replace down the road and I don't want to set this expectation. The other downside is if one day Baby Turtle magically appears? Boy am I going to have to work to explain that one. (Can you clone turtles? Like sheep? He just might buy that.) Please take the poll. Baby turtle is depending on you.
