Baby Giraffe Part 1: The Making of a Doudou

Baby Giraffe is to Jonathan what the blue blanket is to Linus, only he's "much too precious to let out of the house," as Stephen put it, so unlike Linus, Jonathan spends most of his quality time with his "security blanket" in bed.

When Jonathan first came, he had lots of soft toys from which to choose, I loving baby toys and he being my first chance to indulge in baby accessories.  He had a strawberry-car-driving giraffe from Ikea with a rattle inside that now lives in the black-hole-of-mysteriously-missing-baby-things, so it is good that though he enjoyed it for a time, he wasn't too bonded to it.  

Why a strawberry car?  Who knows.  Must be a Swedish thing.

He has a Heffalump lovie blanket from Toys-R-Us with a crinkle corner and crinkly ears that got its fair share of chewing early on, but he seems to have grown out of that one.

At one point, I thought of this as his favorite toy.

For a while it looked like his chosen companion would be the wonderful little blue bunny with the floppy ears sent to him all the way from Finland.  Those ears were made for chewing.  

His arms didn't taste bad, either.

All of these were strong contenders for the spot of honour as Jonathan's best loved companion.  However, in the end, Baby Giraffe pulled into the lead and is now firmly established as the love of Jonathan’s life.  Secretly, I’m glad of this.  

There were two things I bought when Jonathan first came that were a little pricier just because I wanted to give him a few special things.  One was a set of three sleepers from Mother Care (a British store they have in the department stores here) that I bought because of the Noah’s Ark theme and that he wore to his coming home party.

Jonathan rockin' his Noah's Ark sleepers last year

The other “welcome to the family” gift I bought was a little giraffe which is part puppet, part blanket, and part stuffed animal from a wonderful French company called Doudou et Compagnie.  Although at first Jonathan didn’t seem any more interested in the giraffe than in all the other toys I put him to bed with at various times, somewhere along the way it won out over the rest.  I’m not quite sure when it happened, but one day we realized that there was magic in this little floppy animal.

Decisions, decisions.  An almost-7-month-old Jonathan clutches both his baby giraffe and his Heffalump at Oasis Missionary Retreat Center in the South of Taiwan.  I can’t believe how bright and clean and orange the giraffe looks in this picture.

The word doudou is French from the word that means “sweet, soft, gentle” and I like it so much better than the English word “lovie”.  (Unfortunately, the pronunciation doesn’t work so well in American English, sigh.)  It’s a baby’s special toy or blanket with that Je ne sais quois that transforms it from simply a bit of cloth into an object of affection, companionship, comfort, and love, or, in psychological jargon, a “transitional object” to be a mommy substitute as the child moves towards independence.  It was made by a company that markets these toys to be a child’s doudou, but really, you can’t manufacture it (though they did design it well).  When I bought it it was just a toy, and all the engineering and branding in the world couldn’t make a doudou.  Jonathan had to do that.  This giraffe is special because Jonathan decided it was special.  It’s special because Jonathan poured his love into it.  It has picked up his scent.  It bears his marks -- mostly teeth marks.  

        

It no longer looks new or lovely as the world sees it, but it's now so much more than it used to be.  I get the “real rabbit” bit in the Velveteen Rabbit better now.  Baby Giraffe really does seem to be more real and alive than Jonathan’s other toys.  To him, it is the most important thing in the world (and that makes it pretty important to me, too).  He delights in its company.  This is what it was designed to be, but without the work of Jonathan, it’s just a toy.  

It’s rather like what God does with us, isn’t it.  Designed to be the image-bearer of God himself, we can only really be this when He chooses us and works in us and puts His stamp on us and loves us.    I hope one day Jonathan knows what it is to be God’s special object made real and alive by his love.  (My husband, Stephen, thinks I’m stretching the metaphor a bit, but it makes sense to me.  Take it or leave it as you will.  It’s about as deep in thought as I get this season of life.)