My Baby's Baby

Fin has an ABC book with pictures for each letter of the alphabet. On the page for D the pictures are a dog, a door, a dinosaur, a drum and a doll. As we read the book, we tend to point to the various things for which he has a BabySign or word or sound.

Point to dog, he does the sign for dog - panting and patting his leg. Point to drum, he hits the book because he knows you "pat pat" a drum. Point to dinosaur, he roars.

A few weeks ago we were reading the ABC book, got to D and he kept pointing at the doll. It's a picture I would usually ignore because with the drawings in this particular book, it looks more like just a little girl than specifically a doll. I also skip the woman in white who is a nurse for N because "nurse" to Fin is an activity, not a person and she just looks like a lady dressed in white and wearing a funny hat.

Anyway, one day he kept pointing at the doll, so I told him "doll". He pointed again, I said "it's a doll - like a little person, a baby." He kept pointing. I finally asked him if he wanted a doll and he emphatically nodded "YES!"

So, I told him I'd get him a doll the next time I went shopping. I didn't get a chance to get to the store that weekend and assumed he'd forgotten about it, but a few days later he did the same thing - point, point, point to the doll. "Do you want a doll?" YES!

I finally made it to Target yesterday and decided to check out the baby dolls to see if I could find one that didn't creep me out. They had a cute little doll called "Baby I'm Yours" (I've been singing that song all day now!) for about $10 so I picked one up for Fin.

When I got home, he was just waking up from a nap. Usually he wants mommy and nursing right away, but I took the doll out of the Target bag and his little face just lit up! He was in love immediately! He didn't even want a wake-up snuggle from mommy, he just wanted the doll out of the box!

We let him play with his little baby, showed him how to hug and kiss the baby and he proceeded to hug, kiss and love the baby for the rest of the day. We gave him the baby doll to keep him occupied for diaper changes (a real feat if you've ever tried to wrangle a super mobile baby to a changing pad when they want to play) and before he would fall asleep last night, we had to bring the baby into the bedroom for some nighttime cuddles.

This morning as soon as he woke up and chased the cat for a minute, he crawled back in bed with us. I pulled the baby doll back onto the bed and he immediately grabbed the baby, gave it a big hug and kiss and then laid his head on the baby for a snuggle. So very, very cute.

He's been saying "baby" over and over since he got the doll. LOVE this little man - he is such a sweetie!