Blanket Statement

As promised in this post, here are pics [finally!!] of Cooper in his Christmas Snuggie. He hasn't needed it much this summer, but whenever the temp dips below 65 degrees, Cooper will once again don his beloved blue Snuggie. And he'll wear it proudly.

Cooper has a history with fleece that dates back to the days when blankets were just blankets--the days when blankets didn't have sleeves, or annoying infomercials.

It all began the year that Santa brought Cooper to our family for Christmas -- even though Mrs. Claus really didn't think we needed a puppy....because Mrs. Claus already had her hands full taking care of 4 kids, washing mountains of laundry, and suffering under the dictatorial reign of an 18 pound stray cat named Friendly. However, Santa had already made up his mind, and Cooper came to live with the Nash-clan anyway.

Cooper was young, and needy, and so tiny. He shivered constantly and never seemed to get used to the cold temperatures inside our drafty old house; so Santa...er, I mean....my husband carried our new ward around for weeks, kangaroo-style, in his sweatshirt pocket. My youngest kid also thought it was cute to dress our new dog in her old clothes and she often lugged him around the house like a baby brother. (Sometimes Cooper even suffered the indignity of riding in a pink doll carriage, right along side Cheerleader Barbie and countless Beanie Babies.) Cooper became accustomed to constant human contact and to being doted on and swaddled like a newborn. Thus began our dog's fetish for fleece.

Since those early days, Cooper has always had at least one favorite blanket which he sleeps underneath, winter and summer. His first, and by far, his favorite blanket was a cast-off pink Barbie blanket/sleeping bag. [It's the same Barbie sleeping bag that appeared in this story.] Cooper loved that blanket. Like Peanuts' Linus and his infamous blue blanket, wherever Coop went, so did Barbie blankie. He dragged it all over the house, and I could often hear the tink, tink, tink of the metal zipper as Coop dragged the tattered sleeping bag along our wood floor and up and down our wood stairs. Cooper also enjoyed chewing on the blanket and regularly used it as a pacifier to soothe himself to sleep. He managed to chew hundreds of somehow perfectly round holes all over the thing and I had to patch it up from time to time.

Eventually Barbie blanket was beyond repair and I was forced to throw it out. After some serious withdrawal issues, Cooper eventually attached himself to other fleece items around the house. And he has done so with a vengeance. Perhaps as payback for my Spring cleaning and for callously (ha!) throwing out his favorite security blanket, Cooper still chews perfectly round holes in other things. Some of our bedsheets, a few old sweatshirts, and almost every blanket in the house now looks like large fuzzy Swiss cheese. It's a bit unsettling, and also it looks like we have a terrible infestation of moths.

So that's why last Christmas, Mrs. Claus thought a dog-sized Snuggie seemed like a good idea. Cooper could be warm, secure, and maybe he would lay off snacking on our blankets. And the best part, now Mrs. Claus can invest in some new (Cooper-free) bed linens.