Never Leave Me Behind
When Children Move On From A Favourite Toy
Special Lion has been a huge part of my son’s life since he was four years old, but just lately, he has started leaving him behind.
I know what this means. I have been here before.
While two of my children grew up never really attaching themselves to any particular toy, my eldest daughter and youngest son have had very different relationships with their favourite cuddly toy.
My eldest is now twenty but as a tiny toddler she attached herself to a soft Andy Pandy doll and that toy went on to dominate our lives for years to come. Every photo I have of her from eighteen months to around nine or ten, has Andy Pandy in it too. He went everywhere with her. I lost count of the number of times he would slip from the double buggy only for me to have to turn around and march back to recover him! She took him to nursery with her and refused to hand him in. Eventually, they did manage to persuade her to leave him in a box until home time, but this was difficult for her, and when she didn’t have Andy Pandy to cuddle, she would resort to chewing her nails. One time we left him at the beach after a day out and my husband had to drive back to find him, while I stayed at home panicking. It was our worst nightmare losing that doll!
Andy Pandy is still around. My daughter has long outgrown him and it’s me that can’t quite bear to part ways with him. I have washed and hung him on the line countless times. I have sewn him back together again when he started to split. There never was a more loved and battered toy than that one. He’s been with us for so long, I’d feel like I was throwing one of the family away if I got rid of him now.
When my youngest child was four my sister bought him a soft lion to cheer him up after he had his tonsils and adenoids out. The toy was waiting for him when he got home from hospital, and he tucked it under his arm and called it Special Lion.
It was Andy Pandy all over again.
Special Lion, five years later, has lost his tail, had his nose chewed off by the dog and sewn back on again, has lost half an ear, and had his under carriage stitched back together. He is a squished, pale, and thoroughly battered version of his previous self, but oh, he has been loved.
Still, just lately, I sense the time is approaching when my son will move on from him, and I can’t help feeling that this will be the moment he morphs from little boy to big boy, from small child to pre-teen. And I am not ready for it, not by a long shot. He is my youngest child, and I can’t quite believe how fast the years have gone by.
For the moment, Special Lion is mostly still there, tucked under his arm. He carries him exactly as my daughter carried Andy Pandy — almost up under the armpit. My son sometimes forgets he is holding him there as it’s such an entrenched and familiar way to carry the toy. Recently, he was halfway through the school gates before he flushed bright red and raced back to me, realising he still had Special Lion under his arm! I quickly returned him to the car and my son looked around sheepishly, hoping no one had noticed.
He’s almost nine, and he’s starting to be aware of what is ‘cool’ and what is not. He certainly didn’t want to be seen with a cuddly toy under his arm by any of his school friends. Yet every day, Special Lion travels in the car with us to school, and every evening, he’s back in his usual position, tucked under my son’s arm, his squashed, almost featureless, face peering out.
But lately, there have been a few occasions when my son has left him behind… Not even mentioned him, not even thought about him… On those days, I was half tempted to remind him, don’t you want to get Special Lion? But then I remembered that he’s growing up and of course, he must grow up. There is just no choice about that, not for him and not for me. So, I didn’t say anything. I just bit down on the wobble in my lower lip and blinked the tears from my eyes.
My littlest boy will not be little for much longer.
And, of course, it will happen more and more. Eventually, Special Lion will never leave the bed. Eventually, Special Lion will be pushed into a cupboard or lost amongst the other toys. Why do I feel like this will break my heart far more than it will break my son’s?
I almost dread the day coming but I know it must, just as it did with my daughter.
I suppose, like everything in parenthood, it’s a bittersweet moment for us to watch a child move on from a favourite toy. There will no doubt be pride for the confident young man he’s turning into it, but there will also be a lurch in my stomach, a hitch in my breath as yet another door of childhood swings shut and my littlest one marches bravely on towards growing up. I’ve been here before with the others, but this time it will hit harder because he is the last one.
Still, what can you do? You just have to smile and wave them on their way.
Perhaps I’ll hang onto Special Lion though, just as I have Andy Pandy.
