Gloworm! Gnonny! Sea Lion! Glow Bear! Where are you?

For the majority of my little man's life I have commented on how unattached he is to his toys. I remember when I was pregnant being very excited about choosing what would be "my babies teddy". My husband and I still have our own teddies. Mine is Teddina and she hangs out in what is now "the rumpus room". Pete's is Hobbs and he chills in our bedroom...

I imagined our child would form a strong bond with his bear. He didn't. As soon as he discovered the ability to chuck things, every morning we would enter his bedroom to find his teddy turfed out of his cot onto the floor. If I attempted to put him back in screams of "no! no bear!" would ensue.

I gave up on the poor bear and he now sits high up on a shelf in Ethan's room that he never notices. Poor furry sod.

Fast forward to now. Ethan has a lot of other buddies in his cot.. and he has now become attached. To the extreme. First up we have Gloworm. I bought Gloworm because I was a child of the 80s. I never had one myself but I remember coveting them myself. I grabbed Ethan's on ebay for a bargain 99p. For a long time he was just a cot toy, but in the last year be has grown more and more important to Ethan. In the last 3-4 weeks that has escalated and Glowie often has to go everywhere with us. Which results in him getting very messy. We had a screaming episode last night because Gloworm "was tired and sad" (his batteries had run out). Ethan wouldn't sleep until we had sorted this out.

His attachment has spread though, and now we also have Sea Lion - a bath toy that squeaks. Could there be a more inappropriate toy for your cot at night? Something that when you inevitably lie on in your sleep squeaks at you?!

Then there's Gnonny - this little fellow http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulli-Soft-Toy-CPG-GNON/dp/B001T7TN2E

I point my Gnonny at you!

After him comes Glow Bear. A tiny plastic glow in the dark bear that I played with when I was about 4 I think.

All of these toys have to be within Ethan's reach at all times and if he can't find them in the night he screams and shouts until we stumble in there bleary eyed searching for them on the floor.

It he wants them so bloody much why chuck them out?

It's like a dummy situation. Ethan never took to a dummy so we never had that "oh shit, the dummy's fallen out of the cot, find it now for the love of GOD!" moment. But now, when Ethan is 2 years and 3 months we're in and out of his room crawling around on the floor.

Why? WHY?

Tell me this is a normal phase?

I never thought a child shouting out "sea lion" repeatedly would send shivers down my spine. Speak of the Devil.. Just got to pop (run) upstairs to locate Gloworm...