Those Wacky Fixations

I have to laugh when I think of all the fixations Alex has had over the years. He started off spinning wheels on a little plastic dump truck I bought at the 99¢ Only Store. Then, he forever lined up letters and numbers. He actually slept with the foam bathtub ones.

Allergies coupled with a cold kept Alex wiping his nose for weeks at a time. This eventually turned into a sort of sensory comfort obsession and he never goes anywhere with out a tissue - EVER!

Grandma came for a visit one day with a gangly Lemur that you can wrap around yourself for a hug. If you squeeze his hand just right he would say, with his best Brooklyn accent, “Hi, I’m Londo the Lemur” and squeal like, I guess, a Lemur would.

Alex was glued to Londo for a few years. Mommy had to throw him through the laundry many times to get out the stink from being chewed on constantly right after a jar of Gerber and dragged all over the place. Londo has no nose to speak of now.
Londo got dumped when I put him through the dryer at too high of a temperature. He came out rather crusty. I was devastated. Alex tossed him aside for his new love, a stuffed deer he calls Bambi. It wasn’t the official Disney Bambi, more like the department store deer they try to pawn off on you at Christmas time as a “with purchase” item, but whatever.

This went on and on until he had an entourage of past and present favorites. They experienced his world with him and Alex would greet each one individually when he got home from school with squeals and kisses. He still needs to sleep with all of them close by.

I never thought they’d be replaced for anything in the world – no way, no how. But, then along came the dinosaurs.

There were 20 of them of substantial size, hiding in my closet, waiting for just the right time to have their coming out party. I decided to clean out my closet for once and thought I’d let them see the light of day. They had scary expressions and lots of teeth. I didn’t know whether Alex would warm up to them or be scared half to death.

He came home from school, saw them and it was Kismet.

Now we hold a dinosaur carnival, they play duck duck goose, hide and go seek, jump rope and they dine with full plastic place settings. After dinner, Alex reads them “Go Dog Go” and puts them to bed in a sleeping bag and they say their prayers. My husband even drew up a “Dinosaur Daily Schedule” to keep them busy and to delay Alex’s constant inquiry, “Mommy, what can dinosaurs do next Mommy? What they do next, Daddy?” We are running out of ideas.