everly is obsessed with halloween. she loves bats, cats, ghosts, and goblins. ever since we took her trick or treating, she has refused to leave the house without her pumpkin bucket. at first, i think it was in the hopes of scoring some free candy, but when that faded, the bucket somehow became her binky. (oh, how i wished that her binky could be some small, soft neutral colored stuffed bunny.)
since then, she has taken it with her everywhere, and now she even needs it to sleep. the reality is that it’s actually quite unfortunate that her security object is a giant, bright orange pumpkin bucket. the plastic is just hard enough to make you cringe when it bonks you on the head. its size is just perfect to get stuck in every doorway we pass through. and the worst part is that it attracts the attention of every other kid within a mile radius (they are usually very disappointed when they find no candy in the bucket!).
a few weeks ago when we were at the madison children’s museum in wisconsin, we actually lost her original bucket. i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t excited and even slightly relieved at the prospect of not seeing that orange bucket ever again (haha). but that indeed was short lived because all hell broke loose over the loss of her dear object. the poor girl spent close to an hour searching every crevice of the museum and then continued her search when we got back home by walking around the house crying out: “bucket, where are you???”. to save her sanity and mine, i caved, and i gave her our spare halloween bucket. she knew immediately that the new bucket wasn’t hers – it wasn’t the same faded orange color and didn’t have the same scratches and dents, but she quickly adopted the new one as her own. and it hasn’t left her sight since…
