The Treble With Clef

Noah has never had a singular attachment to a particular toy. He has no blankie or lovey or cribby or boobedyoopedy or whatever it is that kids have. He's gotten vaguely attached to several toys and carried them around for awhile before moving on -- he's really fond of Grover right now, but if one day Grover happens to get wedged under the couch or dropped in a parking lot somewhere Noah will most likely pay no mind. This is the fate that has befallen several stuffed toys -- and one oversized novelty crayon bank -- who have all been loved intensely for a week here and there before being tossed on the metaphorical Scarlett Fever pile without a second thought.

So at least I have reasonable hope that Noah's current fixation with the dust jacket of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends will be similarly temporary, because that one is just fucking weird.

He's not even attached to the dust jacket itself -- he's actually enamored with the curly cursive S in the title and on the back cover. And not because it's the letter S. It's because he's decided that it's actually a treble clef, and that...well, that just makes it fucking weirder.

Treble clefs. I am not lying. He sees them everywhere -- our copy of Boynton's Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! is permanently opened to Di-No-Saurs Sing-Ing A Di-No-Saur Song, so much that the spine of the book is cracked and about to separate; a piece of sheet music at a friend's house caused a goddamn conniption because CLEF! CLEF! HIIIII CLEF!; there's constantly an imaginary treble clef stuck in a closet or in need of rescue (DON'T WORRY CLEF! I COMING!); and God help us all, he's in bed spooning a dust jacket right now, as I type this.

The owner of the aforementioned sheet music declared him a goddamn genius, and more than one non-related adult has marveled at his clearly superior and natural musical talent, but that is because these people do not have children and thus have no way of knowing the truth, which is this:

Or more specifically, this dude:

That's G-Clef, voiced by Ray Charles, and the love of my son's life. We'd own the bedsheets and the lunchbox and probably the G-Clef Funtime Adventure Princess Castle, if they only made any of that stuff. Seriously, if this character came printed on underoos, Noah would be potty-trained already.

But instead, he's forced to make due with this:

I mean, I guess I see it, sort of. I guess in a sea of licensed-character crap it's sweet that he's decided to invent his own little character and its related accessories (also currently much beloved: a Target receipt upon which I hastily scribbled a treble clef in order to distract him at a restaurant, and I'm not sure it's any closer to the real thing than ol' Shel up there), but at the same time...no, baby, we're so not taking a dust jacket to the playground, I don't care how badly Clef wants to ride the swings.

Still. Just because it would totally figure that THIS would be the lovey that sticks around until grade school, I'm a little relieved by the presence of a back-up, in the form of the 30th Anniversary edition that someone gave us.

He won't notice the different color, I'm sure. What matters is that the S/Clef thing is the same, I'm sure.

You really don't get me yet, do you, woman?