‘Tribe of moms’ seek out special blanket for toddler
Jan 10, 2018, 9:57 AM | Updated: Oct 1, 2024, 7:40 am
(Jessica Haslam )
(Jessica Haslam )
A local Daily Dose of Kindness thanks to Jessica Haslam reaching out to me on Twitter. The Shoreline mom wrote me about her youngest son Duke who has a favorite blanket.
“It’s his favorite thing. When he’s sad that’s what his brothers go get to help him calm down. When he’s tired that’s what he lays his head on. He kisses it. It’s just the sweetest thing,” Jessica Haslam told me.
Last week, the blanket was lost on a trip to the Everett area with his nanny.
“She went back after I got home from work to try to find it. Couldn’t find it. I went back a couple hours later just sort of driving aimlessly in a mom panic to try to find it — couldn’t,” Haslam said.
She says she tried to find another to buy online but, as it turns out, this is not just a special blanket for Duke. The blanket is also special because it’s the last of its kind.
“Just a Target Circle-brand blanket. But they discontinued Circle brand. It was actually purchased as a backup to a similar blanket in a different color to avoid this exact scenario but then he took to this one more so because, we like to think, it’s Seahawks colors,” Haslam said.
Duke is only 2, so next she thought maybe she could convince him that a different blanket would work. It had similar colors but she says the offering was turned away – shoved off a chair in a show of rejection.
Haslam was in a tough spot. I think any parent out there can attest to the fact that you will do anything for your child. You’ll take a bullet for them and, if it comes to it, you’ll walk to the ends of the earth to replace their favorite blanket.
Fortunately, in the age of social media Haslam didn’t have to trudge through the sands of the Sahara to get a blanket. Instead, she posted to a few local mom groups on Facebook and then a friend suggested they go national.
“Her Facebook group that’s a huge nation-wide thing called “Kids, Steals and Deals” and that has, like, 50,000 people in it. I said ‘sure, why not?’ I was so desperate. She posted it on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning two women who said ‘I have that blanket!’ Haslam said.
No questions asked, no money exchanged. It was just fellow parents who knew her dilemma. Haslam says it was a woman in Illinois that got the blanket to her just this past Monday. Duke’s reaction, which was captured on video, will melt your insides like a pot of milk chocolate fondue.
Haslam says Duke now has his favorite blanket back and two backups are still on the way thanks to what she calls a “tribe of moms” who had her back. It might be ‘just a blanket’ but we know it’s more than that for Duke. And now, for Haslam, it means so much more, too.
“Such a feel-good moment in this climate of our country where everything is chaotic and it seems like, you know, every news story that you turn on is these groups that hate each other, the climate of the White House. To be reminded that there are perfectly awesome strangers out there who are willing to do something that they’ll never meet? It was pretty great,” Haslam said.
If you have a Daily Dose of Kindness to share with Colleen, email her at cobrien@kiroradio.com
You can hear Colleen O’Brien’s “Daily Dose of Kindness” segment every morning at 7:30 a.m. on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.
