Stripey Strikes Back

A little while back I wrote about my son's meltdown re his beloved blanket, Stripey, being left at my mom's house one night. Well we had another freak-out the other night, and I'm starting to wonder about the merits of comfort objects.
My husband and I are watching a movie after putting the kiddos down and it's at least 10:00 so I'm fairly certain they're out, and then I hear a knock on my son's door. Ben has been snoozing next to me because he's an old man and apparently can't stay awake for a whole movie (side rant) and so I tap him and tell him Jude's knocking. And then I hear it, a scream, a cry so horrific that I thought something had either torn off one of my son's limbs or a troll was trying to get in the window. Normally, I would be running already, but as I was already tapping on my husband, I just intensified it until I was hitting him a little frantically and saying, "Jude's crying." And this part is pretty comical, despite my son's distress: Ben leaps up wide-eyed and scrambles/stumbles/runs out of the room. He looked like one of those cartoon characters running around the corner, where it takes minute to get the traction to actually move forward. I still laugh when I think of that image.
Anyway, I decided to join my husband when I hear Jude is still crying because I am actually a little worried that he may have gotten hurt somehow. After I scoop him up, it takes me a minute to decipher the hysterics, but I finally understand that Stripey has been inadvertently mutilated. And Jude is panicked, so distraught that he unknowingly has ripped his beloved right down the middle. From what I make of his cry-talking, he was asleep when he must have pulled Stripey, who was already starting to get a couple holes, when the unthinkable happened. What gets me is that Jude actually seemed angry at himself. He's three for goodness sakes!
In the aftermath, trying to calm him down and make him feel better, I promised to sew up Stripey the next day, and that seemed to have the desired calming effect. One problem, I'm not a seamstress in any sense of the word. I barely understand the basics. But a promise is a promise, and Jude doesn't seem to mind the crude stitch up the middle of his darling blanket.
So, all is right with the world. That is, until the next Stripey debacle occurs.