What's a Bow-Bah?

When I was pregnant with Eden, we could see her sucking her thumb in my ultra sounds. So we knew we were gonna have a thumb sucker. She got it from Aric who sucked his thumb until he was 5yrs old. He says his parents told him he would get teased at school if the other kids found out, so he finally stopped.

When Eden was about 10 mos old she was crawling around on the floor and found one of those clothy hair ties. It belonged to Maya, but they would never stay in her hair so we put them on her stuffed animals or dolls. Eden put it on her thumb and would rub it between her fingers while she sucked her thumb. (this is a reinactment)

I don't ever remember having a name for them. But when Eden was about 18 mos old and learning how to talk. She started calling them Bow-Bah's(sounds like soda but with a b instead of a d). And thus the word bow-bah was created. She always had one or two, everywhere we went they came with us.


Edee loved her bow-bah's. She had hundreds of them. She would leave them everywhere. One Saturday morning we were assigned to clean the church building with some other families. The lady who was cleaning the nursery came up to me with a dirty, pink, scraggely looking bow-bah and asked me if Edee was missing it. I assured her she wasn't and that the trash was the appropriate place for it.

Everyone who knew us and Edee well, knew about bow-bah's. She always had one in her thumb or on her wrist for a back up. (Don't worry, I washed them regularly) We apparently left one at the Jenkin's because Hannah brought one to Cynthia and said "Look Edee left her bow-bah" She thought that's just what those hair ties were called.

Edee was so excited when she got 50 of them for her 2nd birthday! Can you say ENABLER!

She got creative with her bow-bah's. One day at church in the middle of sacrament meeting she shot it like a rubberband and hit someone a few rows down, luckily it was someone we knew. She also found interesting places to put them, on her dolls, up her nose...


As Eden got older she would wake us up in the middle of the night because she couldn't find her precious bow-bah. So we started putting them in strategic places on her bed so in the middle of the night she could find it on her own. It saved me from crawling under her bed in the wee hours of the morning to find one.

My friend Becky was joking about how when Eden got to college or when she was on her honeymoon she would still be hiding bow-bah's under her pillow. Although very funny, it got me thinking and I decided that when Eden turned 3 she would give up the bow-bah's.

About a week after her 3rd birthday I explained to her that the bow-bah fairy was coming to take her bow-bah's and give them the babies who needed them. We went around the house gathering all the bow-bah's we could find. It was a very emotional night for Eden and for me...That night Aric caught me crying in the bathroom when I saw one of her bow-bah's in my make-up bag. The bow-bah fairy came and took Edee's stash of bow-bah's and left behind a Kelly doll. Eden was thrilled with the trade.(The bow-bah fairy kept a few just for fun.)

Just a couple days ago I was sweeping underneath the washer and found a green one. (don't be disgusted, I'm sure you've got treasures under your washer too) Edee saw it and very excitedly said "Look mom, we missed a bow-bah, we've got to get it to the bow-bah fairy!" I assured her that the bow-bah fairy was good and that we could actually use it to tie her hair back with. She said "A bow-bah in my hair?! That's funny mom!".