Blanketless

When Molly came to live with us she was small, white as porcelain and silent as a snowy night. We watched over her, we held her, we loved her. As her eyes were opened to the new world she was living in she found her voice, her smile and her big-eyed expressions. It was magic watching her come to life. Her name was Eowyn then, and we called her Winnie. she was a miracle to behold, a baby for us to love while we searched the world over for the baby I'd seen in my dreams. Little did we know that she was the baby we were meant to love and the baby in my mind was yet unborn. God had made our hearts ready for this little soul-His plan was perfect in hindsight. Like the song says:

Thy God doth undertake
to shape the future as He has the past
thy hope thy confidence let nothing shake
all now mysterious will be bright at last

and that is the way it was. And all the way back then we didn't know from day to day, month to month if our little "Unsinkable Molly Browneyes",as we nicknamed her, would remain with us or go home to the mother who loved her enough to send her to our waiting arms.

So we bought her a present. something she'd have always. Something consistent, something to remind her of safety and security.

We bought her a blanket.

She loved it instantly. Placing it over her face, Molly would suck on that blanket like babies suck on their pacifiers. It was the balm of Giliad we had wanted it to be.

And then Molly didn't have to go. Months turned to years, and one wonderful light-filled October day Molly's mom called me out of the blue and bestowed upon us a mandate to parent her daughter eternally. It, after some bumps and bruises along the adoption journey, was a happily ever after....

and the blanket remained a constant. It moved from Utah to Africa, from Africa to Texas. It is the "go to" for sacrament meetings, for plane flights and long car rides
and of course for bed time.

But time has passed. Molly turns 5 in just 4 short months. And its time now for blanket to take a back seat, or a top shelf, and for Molly to move ahead and find security in other things.

Its been hard for us both to give up the blanket. But yesterday morning Molly snuck her blanket from her bed and hid it somewhere in our house. And I was of a strong enough constitution not to search for it high and low when bedtime came.

And Molly slept anyway.

And then today instead of searching for the shining green security of her blanket she jumped on the trampoline and screamed at the top of her lungs at the horses as they ran in the pasture behind the house

and bedtime came again
and her blanket was still lost

and though she asked for me to find it, I was strong again, and with compassionate words I calmly let her know that she could look for it tomorrow. And I loved her and laid in her bed with her and read her stories. And somehow I'd like to think

that maybe its time that I could be that security, that feeling of home and safety and that maybe blanket can stay hidden.

and Molly can perhaps be blanketless for good.