Babies Broke

Grammy and Ginny gave the girls these dolls for their birthdays. Despite the fact that they had several baby dolls already, these dolls became instant favorites and the girls carried them around everywhere. They fed them, changed them, wiped their butts, put them in their beds and even slept with them. They were exactly the same, but somehow the girls could tell them apart and fought tooth and nail to get "their" baby back. (I started to be able to do so too when I noticed a small stain on the back of one.)

But two things happened. First, they started to kinda fall apart and each had these strange hard, sharp plastic things sticking out of the necks and upper body. I'm guessing they were some part of the doll holding it together. The girls didn't seem to mind, but it kinda made me anxious.

And second, Miranda started to obsess over the doll. The doll had to be precisely under the covers with her in a certain position with her head turned a certain way. If this wasn't the case, she would start grunting, then crying, then screaming. And since crying and screaming are already part of her nightly routine, we weren't thrilled when we asked her "What do you need?" and her response was "Help Baby Covers!" So after a week or so of this nonsense and multiple trips to their room at night to "Help Baby Covers", I hid the babies. When it came to nap time, I said, "Sorry Girls, no more babies. Babies broke. Babies went bye bye. Babies all gone." Elizabeth looked at me as if I was crazy, but after just a minute or two, totally accepted that the babies were gone and happily took their kitties to bed with them. I was very happy since Michael and I debated for days the best way to adios the babies. Should we get replacements? Should we decapitate the babies and let them see them actually broke? Should we give them away to younger kids? So my cold turkey approach (which we used with pacifiers, bottles, cribs) once again worked well.

Or did it?

That night, after books and songs and kisses goodnight, Miranda yelled out,

"Help Kitty Covers!"

Jesus H. Christ.