I am going to be honest here: I have not spent a lot of effort or money on creating a nursery for either one of my two children. I bought the necessary furniture and some decoration, of course, trying to find nice, affordable and mostly functional pieces, but did not dream up elaborate themes and designs. Partly because I hardly had time as I continued to work full-time and go to school, partly because I, myself did not have a sophisticated nursery and partly because I was more into exploring the baby clothing, toy and book selections.
So my older son was wrapped into a relatively simple white blanket adorned with long-eared puppies as a young baby, while my younger one was swaddled in a baby duvet sewn into a blue cover which features a huge cheerful, sitting teddy bear. When they outgrew their first baby blankets, they both ended up using the same Winnie the Pooh-themed toddler blankets as I always considered that book the best in children’s literature. The older one was happy with it, carried the set’s pale green pillow with the big, smiling Pooh on it back and forth between his preschool and our home every day. But the younger one got tired of it pretty quickly.
One night when he was around 5 years old, he said: ‘I hate this blanket. It is itchy, And anyway, Winnie, the Pooh is stupid and is for babies, only. I want to have what Aaron has.’
Aaron, his much older brother had something special and unique by then. He picked it for himself. One year they made hand-stuffed and -sewn pillows from alphabet fabric at school. His choice of ABC fabric from the local quilting store’s selection proved to be a real winner: instead of choosing one of the many designs featuring larger or smaller block letters or colorful and playful letter and image combinations, he opted for a much simpler and cleaner fabric. It was dark blue with relatively small black and white letters printed on it in what seemed to be words, but turned out to be meaningless strings of smartly organized characters arranged for eye-pleasing symmetry and variety of shapes. It perfectly reflected his no-fuss, introspective and individualistic personality. After completing the pillow, he asked for a matching duvet cover and promptly received it.
So now Adam, the younger one also wanted to have his special bedding. I felt a bit guilty for not giving enough thought to such decor issues. As Adam sulked a bit, I suddenly remembered my first ‘big girl’ bedding set, too. It was nothing special, mainly white with little yellow ducks or chicks thrown all over it pecking away at brownish-reddish seeds. I think everyone remembers their first childhood sheets and covers. Although I did not particularly liked my ducks, every time I was forced to sleep in the ‘spare’, spinach green bedding that I used when my ducks were in the laundry, I missed them. The pillow case had one duck on it – one from the fifty or so that covered each side – that had one of its legs left off somehow. Every night I touched that one-legged duck before going to sleep.
But my memories of my duck-covered bed did not resolve Adam’s bedding issue. So we went to explore the fabric store the next day. He was set on looking for ‘what Aaron has’ and indeed found a variety of alphabet fabrics: letters on blue for boys, slim letters on pink for girls, chunky ABCs interspersed with funny animals, dotted, striped, checkered and flowery letters floating and tumbling all over. But letters were not really for him, he never liked to look at books or listen to stories from my carefully selected children’s library. He was ready to give up his quest for the special bedding when he suddenly remembered: numbers. Even at the age of 5, he was already fascinated by numbers, could add and subtract, even multiple digit numbers. So we asked for numbers fabric. Unfortunately, the store did not have any in stock, but from the internet we ordered Adam’s special bedding fabric: stretchy vintage numbers jersey, with chunky, somewhat irregularly printed numbers that almost melted into each other and were separated and differentiated only by thin black lines and each number’s unique, bright color. This became Adam’s bedding of choice.
Three years later I still tuck them into their special letters and numbers blankets every night wishing them sweet dreams.
