Beanky Roadkill

The preschool bake sale is tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to see another Pumpkin Bread loaf for as long as I live. Well, at least after the sale, and after the sweet smell of nutmeg and cloves and ginger and sugar sugar sugar leave the house. When Heath woke up from his nap yesterday, he instantly complained, the house is too smelly. Sweet cakes--he leaves them more than he takes them.

Speaking of Sweet Cakes, I've been far too neglectful in recording my little Heath and Stella ditties these days, and there have been quite a few. It seems my mind is mostly fixated on stopping the madness of sibling playfulness that always goes too far. On a positive note, they really do enjoy each other. And then they don't. Their games of tag, no matter how often I state the rules (Don't push. Don't scream. Don't sit on each other's heads when you ignore the don't push rule), I still find them collapsed in a pile of raucous laughter that is deafening and always ends in...you guessed it...crying.

But it isn't all refereeing. I am currently at a loss for conjuring up a moment of sweet bonded bliss, because I am tired and our bedroom smells like a giant Thanksgiving muffin brownie pound cake with peanut butter vanilla glaze, and it has penetrated my brain like a hyperglycemic brain fog. I really just wanted to tell a Stella Beanky tale.

Stella's and Beanky's bond continues to grow. Where there is Beanky, there is Stella. And where's there's a Stella, there'd better be a Beanky. Or else. As I have blogged before, washing Beanky can be tricky. It is a covert operation, because if she should spot the green blanket just before it is tossed in the washer, I better be prepared for two things. 1) Relentless crying that will not cease until Beanky is back where it rightfully belongs--wrapped around Stella's neck. Or 2) Letting go of the idea that Beanky is going to be washed at that time and giving it back to Stella, no matter how much marinara sauce or blue paint or milk or mud or marker or juice is on it.

After dropping Heath off at school on Wednesday, I decided I would make use of the one child time and head to Trader Joe's. Once again, we were mid-week and out of most every food in the house. As I waited at a No Right on Red light, I heard the sound of Stella's window open--a trick her big brother taught her just two days earlier. The light turned green and I turned right, blinded by a scream of horror coming from the back of the car.

My first thought, Oh no, she's rolled the window up and crushed her little fingers and ripped one off! But through the screams and tears of terror, I understood one word: Beanky. I immediately turned into the first parking lot entrance, parked the car, and spun around. Sure enough. The tears were about Beanky. And Beanky was nowhere to be found.

Then I recognized another word: window. Then another: throw. Well, 'fro, to be exact.

Did you throw Beanky out of the window? I asked.

Beanky 'frowed da window, she pitifully howled.

I parked the car in a spot closest to a grassy knoll beside the busy intersection. I jumped out of the car, fought my way through a nasty hedge of prickly bushes, quickly spotting Beanky lying helpless in the road. Fortunately I arrived at a moment of light traffic, so my wait to retrieve the lovey was minimal. I grabbed the lifeless body from the street and rushed back to a still hysterical Stella.

That is until she spotted Beanky in my hand. I opened her door and placed the soft sage fleece in her lap.

That's when I saw it. Beanky was smothered in tire tracks and dirt. She'd been runover. According to the wheel prints, not once, but twice.

Stella rubbed her little finger over the embedded grooves, flicking at the debris. Oh no! she cried. Beanky doi-ty! And she buried her face in her dear friend's fabric.

Beanky didn't leave Stella's side while we did our grocery shopping or on the ride home. But later, while she was eating lunch, she said, Beanky 'frowed da window. Beanky doi-ty. Wash Beanky, mommy. And for the first time ever, she handed over the blanket, still covered in dirt and fabric wounds.