When my daughter was born, someone gave us a small, pastel, Gund caterpillar doll with a rattle in the tail. It was likely a last-minute purchase, an impulse buy at the register to further decorate a beautiful basket of baby items at my shower. The little guy sat with all of my daughter’s other stuffed animals but was never really played with – first babies get so much stuff! When her brother was born a few years later, she passed the caterpillar along as a “baby toy,” probably with the tags still attached.
And my son chose this simple stuffed animal as The One. The Toy that Surpasses All Others. The Comfort Object. The Lovey. We christened him Wally Wiggle Worm after a song my daughter learned in preschool, and he became an official member of our family.
Wally has definitely had a bold and interesting life. What a good sport he’s been! He has been on three Cub Scout camping trips, watched countless movies, ridden in remote-controlled cars and had his outline traced in sidewalk chalk on the driveway. He’s been chewed on by an aunt’s dog and is repeatedly sniffed by our suspicious cat. He’s been to Arizona, Florida and nine other states in between. He’s been sweat on, peed on and puked on, and has survived countless dizzying cycles in the washing machine. When a relative taught the kids to crochet, Wally got a yellow sleeping bag, making him look like a banana. I’m sure he felt ridiculous but he kept smiling anyway (at least, I imagine that he did, since he doesn’t seem to have a mouth). I don’t know what my son would do without him.
Before we had kids, we had my co-worker’s family over for dinner on a Friday night. After they left, I found their young son’s blanket, which at the time appeared to me to be nothing more than a tattered, fraying, faded bunch of cloth. I threw it in my work bag to return to my co-worker on Monday. But a few hours later, my co-worker called me in an absolute panic, saying he would drive back to our house right then (nearly midnight) to retrieve the blanket. I hung up the phone and griped to my husband about how ridiculous our friends were being – it was just a ragged old burp cloth, right?? Couldn’t their son live without it for a night or two? Couldn’t they just give him another one?
Fast forward to a few years later, when my husband paged me at work to report that Wally was missing. Our son was inconsolable, so much so that he missed his nap that day. When I got home we searched the entire house again – freezer, dryer, litter box and all! But Wally had vanished. The following morning, my supervisor caught me searching eBay during business hours for a replacement Wally. Suddenly, my co-worker’s behavior made perfect sense. Yep, karma’s pretty funny sometimes.
About a week later, my son was playing with his toy spaceship and opened the cockpit to reveal Wally. He was a little crumpled, but puffed right back up again after vigorous hugging from my son. We joked that he had been to the moon during his time away from us. Rock on, space worm!
Wally’s fuzz has all but worn off from years of love, but my son isn’t showing any signs of giving him up any time soon. I, however, am already dreading the day. In some ways, Wally has become my own security object: he is, essentially, a physical extension of my love for my children. He goes with my son on each new adventure. He is there when I am not enough, comforting my son in ways that nothing else can. He absorbs my son’s fears, anxieties and sadness, like a sponge for a little boy’s feelings. And I am certain that he knows all of my son’s hopes and dreams, even if I do not.
In some ways, Wally is my kids’ childhood – intensely held, but slowly wearing thin. Hang in there, little guy. We’re not ready to give you up quite yet.
