Baby Alive
posted Tuesday July 8th, 2008
I’ve already written once about a scary baby doll.
It happened again. Several times in the last few days, I’ve walked past the living room couch and gasped — there lay (laid? pick the one you like best) a baby.
I know Ray really wants a third, but I’m not sure even he’s resourceful enough to scare one up and leave her naked on the living room couch, sucking her thumb.
And this baby could be Sophie’s double, back three or four years. Do you ever have that dream where it turns out you have a baby, and you forgot about it, then there it is?
Oh. Well, lucky you.
Turns out this was no dream. It was Sklyar. We have so many freaking toys we all lose track in this house, and there’s a constant churn that brings old discards (or not quite discards, just castoffs, maybe) to the surface. Sklyar was the doll Annabelle absolutely positively had to have, couldn’t live without, last year on a trip to New York CIty that featured a stop at FAO Schwartz (but not American Girl, something — my debit card? — told me to hold off on AG as long as possible) and a long time in the baby department.
Actually, that’s not the doll Annabelle absolutely positively had to have and couldn’t live without. THAT doll was about $50 more, simply because it came with its own — get this — adoption papers. And a “nurse” running the department. I wanted to run screaming from the place, but instead I reasoned with Annabelle til really I simply wore her out and she agreed to get the same doll, sans papers. (I’m sure our Sheriff Joe Arpaio here in Maricopa County would not approve, but at least Skylar’s pale as the moon, no Mexican blood in her, Joe.) Of course the week we got back from NYC, I heard a hysterical piece on This American Life about that very department at FAO Schwartz. If you can find it on their site, thislife.org, it’s totally worth the time to track it down and listen.
Anyhow, I hadn’t seen Skylar in months, but there she was, stripped to nothing (of course — every doll Annabelle and Sophie have received in the last six years has been stripped naked upon arrival, beginning with Rio de Janeiro Barbie, which the sitter gave Annabelle when she turned 1; thus killing my vow to not let my kids play with Barbies) and laying/lying on the living room couch, waiting to scare me.
Finally, last night, I tossed Skylar back in the landfill, I mean toy pile. At least she doesn’t make noise.
Or emit liquids. I’ve gotta say that one of the funniest moments of motherhood had to be the day my sister called in a panic; she’d just bought my niece Katie a Baby Alive for her fifth birthday.
“Um, I can’t believe I’m leaving this message,” Jenny started, gasping a little. “But we fed Baby Alive an hour ago and she hasn’t pooped. What do you think is –”
And she started laughing so hard she had to hang up.
Damned if I know. I’m scared of dolls, let alone human poo.
Turns out you have to sit Baby Alive upright. Then she’ll poop.
Hilarious.