Houston, we have a problem

I've been thinking some lately about transitional objects, security blankets, loveys--whatever name you fancy. My children (so far) seem to come into the whole transitional object thing a bit late (from what I've read, many children attach to something at about six months of age). Much of this thinking has been happening in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning, as I've been trying (in some cases fruitlessly) to soothe my sick daughter back to sleep. As I sit and rock her, her free hand flutters, finally coming to rest just inside my sleeve, or tucked along the collar of my shirt.

I can't help remembering similar moments with Andrew, also at about eighteen months of age, when we left Dan in Pennsylvania to finish his dissertation and moved into my parents' basement. Suddenly, my little boy who had been sleeping heroically, couldn't go to sleep at night without me. Or, to be more precise, without my hair, which he liked to stroke between his fingers. After several nights of sitting close to the crib so he could feel my hair, I decided that this had to stop. We found a soft Belle doll in the stores whose hair (in color and texture) roughly resembled mine, and Andrew made a nearly seemless transition to the doll . . . And dolly still remains one of his most beloved friends (although we're now on the second doll and dirt is so deeply ingrained in her face and arms that no amount of scrubbing will bring it clean, and the stitches around her head are beginning to loosen. I wonder, sometimes, what we'll say if dolly's head ever pops off).

And this brings me to Evelyn, who has a similar need for tactile contact with me. But unlike Andrew's hair fetish, it seems to be the feel of my skin that soothes her. Andrew's transitional object made sense: but what on earth can we find to mimic the texture and warmth of human skin?