K-bao has developed a very close relationship with her blankie (bei-bei in Chinese). It's to the point where she won't sleep without it, and at random points during the day may shout "Bei! Buh! Bay!" into the air until she locates it or we bring it to her. Beyond the emotional attachment, blankie also serves as teething relief (K-bao stuffs it into her mouth at every opportunity and bites ferociously), a sign of her love to her parents (she offers bei-bei to K-Pop and K-Mum when she feels particularly generous; after a few seconds, of course, she'll snatch it back), and general object of distraction (whenever she is about to launch into a tantrum about, say, not being allowed to play with the electrical outlet, we'll holler "Where is bei-bei?" and she will immediately forget what she wanted and go looking around for it).
As you can imagine, bei-bei takes quite a beating around the house and generally doesn't smell the best, so it needs to go into the washer not infrequently. This creates some anxiety for the K-folks because we never know when she'll start to bellow "Bei!" and grow inconsolable (which has happened already). We've hunted around Babies R Us online - the original retailer - for backups but so far haven't had any luck. Bei-bei came as a gift, in a pair with a second blankie in a different shade, but K-bao won't settle for ugly sister Leah.
Of course, K-Mum blames K-Pop, whom she accuses of carrying around a security blanket through junior high - a claim K-Pop vigorously denies.
