the turkey baster

My children have never really had any special stuffed animals that they couldn't live without. I did when I was little (and I carried that dirty, worn out stuffed mouse off to college with me), but my children just never got that attached to any single blanket or stuffed animal. They've had favorites at various times - Jane currently favors a stuffed panda bear she's christened 'Andy Malanakis' (sp?), but no can't-live-without ones -

They have, on the other hand, developed bizarre if fleeting attachments to OTHER things they would haul around with them. When Henry was about 2, he was obsessed with a small, plaster of paris elephant for a few months. He carried it around in his chubby little fist at all times, including in the bath tub.

Currently, Elliot has developed a particular fondness for a turkey baster. Why I even HAVE a turkey baster, I am not sure, as I have no idea how to cook, much less baste a turkey. But at some point, my mother or someone must have hopefully given me one, and the other night E found it in a kitchen drawer and promptly adopted it.

The turkey baster has bludgeoned various people over the head, served as a squirt gun, played the role of a catapult outside his toy castle and two nights ago, I went to tuck him in, only to find him already asleep, with a stuffed dinosaur under one arm, his favorite Bart Simpson comic book resting on his chest, and the turkey baster clutched in his other hand.