A boy and his doll

watchful, originally uploaded by London looks.

At Buddy's weekly playgroup, I've seen that he has an interest in the baby dolls. I was keen to encourage this because he's never shown the slightest attachment to any kind of cuddle or cumfy, despite having been given an impressive collection of cute stuffed animals from pigs to cats to polar bears. He's always preferred hard edged plastic toys.

I guess the baby dolls have enough hardness about them and he loves to finger their eyes and ears and toes.

So, I went on the hunt for a doll that he could call his own.

It's very hard to find an appropriate doll for a very little boy, I've discovered. I didn't want one that weed or cried or shed "real" tears. And not just because they cost a lot more. I already have a baby that wees and cries and sheds real tears. And I have a rather painful early childhood memory of a doll whose mechanical cries scared the wits out of me. It was relegated to a drawer and even seeing it in my late childhood elicited a little frisson of fear. I'm uncomfortable even remembering that thing with her non-removable pink polka dot outfit and the drawstring wail of death.

I finally found one that didn't cost too much and doesn't do too much (apparently this one will say Papa and Mamma if you insert some batteries into its chest cavity which we will not be doing.)

That was Baby Hannah.

I'm trying not to play too much into gender stereotypes, but Baby Hannah came in a sickeningly sweet, cotton candy pink sleeper outfit. It was just a little bit too girly for my boy.

Baby Hannah was stripped down and changed into one of Buddy's old outfits and became Petey. Petey isn't anatomically correct, so no one need know about his gender dysmorphic past.

Sadly, and very much unlike us, we were quite organised about putting away Buddy's earliest outfits. So although Petey should be wearing newborn sizes, he tends to wear a few outsized 0 to 3 month garments that were hidden in the dark recesses of our dirty clothes basket. We just roll up the legs and pull the waistband high. And Petey can't go naked because he has a non-washable cloth body and Buddy sometimes likes Petey to join him at meal times.