Doll Baby

Anonybabe has been playing with her dolls by herself lately. I'll look over at her to see that she's babbling to her Pooh and moving his arms. Or she'll mime that she wants her doll to do something, and when I ask the doll "oh, do you want some food?", she'll take a moment to position it in her hands so that she can nod its head, and say "mmm HMMM" in a high voice. Or get the doll's hands in her hands so she can help it make the sign for "more" or "please".

And her new obsession is our Elmo's Potty Time DVD. It is a truly disturbing and truly helpful special all about (insert every known euphemism for urinating and defecating here). Elmo's dad sings a song called Potty Time that Anonybabe requests loudly and often. On our way back from Denver I treated our seatmates to it several times.

The flight back home yesterday had me so incredibly crabby and exhausted, yet I'm delighted with all of the little games Anonybabe and I played. We found a picture of a guitar in a magazine and took turns pretending to strum it while we sang Potty Time. We had a Dorothy doll (of Wizard of Oz fame) slide down every imaginable surface, including Anonybabe herself, where she would stop regularly to blow zerberts on Anonybabe's belly. Pretty soon Anonybabe would lift the shirt herself and position Dorothy on her fat tummy and grin up at me. The doll closes her eyes when you lay her back, so when her eyes were closed I would snore loudly three times and then have the doll sit up and "wake up", very confused and jerking around as if in a sleep haze. Anonybabe caught on pretty quickly and would lay the doll back, doing her best heavy breathing and then jerking the doll around and smiling through her pacifier at me, telling me with her eyes to do sound effects. On the el coming back from the airport, she sat both her dolls one to a seat opposite us. It was incredibly sweet to see them looking small and forlorn in the big dirty clinical seats.