Megan's Treasures

Megan has become very attached to small objects. She typically carries a treasure or two around with her all day. She takes them in the car, to the gym, outside, and to bed with her. And in the middle of the night she asks where they are. Try finding a tiny black rubber plug (resembling a hat) at about 4:00am, in the dark, on the bottom bunk. These treasures have become challenges to us. Megan gets quite emotional when one of them suddenly disappears. A search party is quickly summoned by her tears. Luckily we have retrieved them each time! Except one of Polly Pocket's purple shoes. Despite daddy's best efforts to find it outside, it was lost. Oh, and she lost a small monkey at the gym. I tried to give these special items a home - a small plastic container - but so far that hasn't prevented them from being lost. She usually carries them around for at least a few days until the next small object catches her attention. These inanimate objects have separate identities from Megan. Today Megan was touching the computer using her beaver. I said, "Megan, don't touch the computer. You'll mess it up." She said, "I not touching the 'puter. Beaver is." Then she made beaver say, "I disappointed at you. I mad." A few minutes later I began singing to the beaver so that he wouldn't be mad at me. "He" said to me, "That give me a headache!" I assume that a child psychologist, or preschool teacher, would tell us that this is a typical practice for a 3-year-old!???


Some of Megan's treasures have included:

* skeleton finger puppet (from a Halloween trick-or-treat bag)
* 2 miniature Polly Pocket dolls
* stretchy frog
* plastic killer whale
* plastic scuba diver
* plastic black jaguar
* plastic monkey
* yellow bouncy ball
* miniature beanie baby bear (from a Happy Meal)
* Playmobil dalmatian
* little rubber plug (part of a toy) that looks like a hat
* beaver finger puppet