Don't lose that bus: The perils of a child's object of affection

"Have you seen the bus?" Dave asks in a panic. We're with Ben at an aquarium, and Ben is pointing to the fish in a tank.

"Yes, it's in my bag," I reassure him.

We have this exchange multiple times throughout the day. That is because Ben is obsessed with a little yellow metal bus, and our lives are dependent on it being readily available. Whenever we're out, Dave and I regularly glance at Ben's hands to make sure he's still clutching it. If he drops it when we're on the highway and Dave is driving, I have been known to perform Cirque du Soleil acts of gymnastics to retrieve it. At home, we're forever hunting it down.

Whenever it's AWOL, Ben holds out his hands piteously and says "BUSSSSSSSSS!" Like this:

"BUSSSSSSSSSS! BUSSSSSSSSS!" That's what Dave and I wake up to every morning, as Ben stands in his crib. For a while there, I was putting him to sleep with it then sneaking it out once he nodded off, but snoozing next to a hard metal object is not recommended in any of the baby books and I put my foot down. Otherwise, Dave, Max, Sabrina and I are are Ben's bus keepers, suppliers and enablers. Ben used to consider me his source of milk; now he considers me the person capable of retrieving BUSSSSSSSSS! from beneath the couch.

I used to worry that Max's lack of devotion to a blanket, lovey or toy as a baby was indicative of a lack of development; back then, I over-analyzed everything he did (or didn't). He later more than made up with it with his fascination with all things Lightning McQueen and then, fire trucks. Sabrina was obsessed with "habifiers" (pacifiers), and it was easy enough to have a ready supply of both. Only now: BUSSSSSSSSSS!

BUSSSSSSSSSS! is about a month old. I picked it up at a toy store before a lunch out to occupy Ben, a plaything that seemed overpriced at $9.99 but would be worth every cent if it enabled me and Dave to eat. Distraction? Bwaaaaaaaah-ha-ha! Little did we know. Ben takes it everywhere:

The beach

Nice restaurant 

Hotel hallway

The Wetlands Institute in NJ

Grandma's house

Starbucks

Keeping track of it is a challenge, given that BUSSSSSSSSSS! is all of five inches long and Ben enjoys depositing it in random places: in drawers, closets, cabinets and baskets; under bookcases and the hutch in our dining room; and once, in our garbage. That was fun. When I ask him where BUSSSSSSSSSS! is, he just looks at me curiously. I don't get why nobody's yet come up with toys that have built-in trackers. Just think of how much time parents could save if we no longer had to search for errant toy pieces or BUSSSSSSSSSS!

My reward for being BUSSSSSSSSSS!'s handler: When I find it and hand it back to Ben, he reacts as if it is the first time he has ever laid eyes on it.

Ben is similarly obsessed with actual buses. "BUSSSSSSSSSS!" he screeches when Max's school bus shows up or we're walking down a street and one passes by. He also calls trucks "buses" so cruising around with him is very exciting. The other day, we hung out for 15 minutes on a street corner so he could gaze adoringly at a parked school bus. 

Dave keeps warning me that we need to get a backup. Ben tolerates the plastic buses I've gotten, but they are not BUSSSSSSSSSS! The store where I bought BUSSSSSSSSSS! isn't that close to our house, I haven't been able to find another locally and the options on Amazon don't totally look like BUSSSSSSSSSS! I really need to get on that, though, as all hell will break loose when BUSSSSSSSSSS! inevitably does disappear for good.

Pray for us.