how much is too much

As a mother, I feel compelled to save those certain items of childhood importance. Saving things has always been a bit of a compulsion for me. As a teenager I saved my sisters' school work and art projects that I felt were underappreciated by our parents. I put the exceptional pieces on my bedroom door for display and admiration. Now, I have two children of my own and have to determine how much of their physical childhood should be saved and how much is too much.

About ten days ago, my son lost his last pacifier. This boy is 3 years old and has been quite attached to this little piece of plastic for nearly all of those three years. He has horded them

(perhaps my compulsions were passed on to him), hidden them strategically, and mostly been comforted by them. So when we couldn't find the last one last Saturday night, it seemed like an awful, if predictable, tragedy. We looked high and low, under every Thomas the Train track and in every one of Spider Man's webs, but couldn't find it. That night, fortunately, he was too worn out from playing to make too much of a fuss. But the next night - was a true mourning. He's old enough that he understood just how gone it was, but still baby enough to be really sad. He came back downstairs and broke my heart with his very sad tone of voice when he said "Mommy, I need something to suck on." It was as though he understood that the little piece of silicone and plastic comforted him, and he would take any substitute available.

Somehow he (and I) made it through that night. And the next. And the next. He hasn't mentioned it for days and is doing just fine. Then yesterday, I was changing the sheets on my bed and I heard it land with a slight thud on the floor.

So my question for you is this - What do I do with it? Obviously, I'm not giving it to my son. It would be a cruelty to ask him to go through that withdrawal twice. I called my mother just after the discovery and she said "Throw it away - quickly - before he finds it." My response was that it felt like I was throwing away his best friend. I couldn't do that.

I have a friend, who discovered among her mother's belongings the little rings that were used in her brothers' circumcisions. I know someone else whose family kept the caul (aka amniotic sac) that a baby was born in. These seem like examples of sentimentality gone awry - possibly gone biohazard! But, who am I to judge, I have a placenta in the deep freezer! It took me 2 1/2 years, a new pregnancy, and a bucket-full of tears to bury Liam's placenta (that's another story - I don't think I'm quite as strange as that makes me sound).

So for now, I guess I'll keep it hidden in a drawer too high for my 3' 1" charmer to see into. And think of a plan before he gets much taller.