My adorable daughter

Stella was just chattering away in her room so I went in there to check out what she was doing. It was so cute. She had put her "babies" on the ottoman in her room and had covered one of them up with a blanket and given the other one a stuffed dog to cuddle with. She said, "nap, nap" and I was like, "are your babies taking a nap?" And she said yes. I asked if she wanted another blanket for the other baby and she said yes, so I gave Stella a blanket and she proceeded to pull every blanket out of the drawer and put it on them. They are very warm now. I left the room and she closed the door, I guess to denote that it was nap time. She's been going "bye bye baby, nap" for a few minutes now. Freakin' adorable.



Tim, I think, has been bewildered by me getting excited about the whole doll thing. I wanted Stella to have a doll and while I wouldn't say I pushed the doll, I certainly played with it with her and suggested she cuddle and sleep with it, that sort of thing. Although she didn't really need convincing. And it hit me this morning, it's really awesome to watch your child imitate you taking care of them but with their doll. And Stella is really enjoying it, she obviously likes to imitate Mommy with her dolls. I mean, she's got blocks, books, stuffed animals, all kinds of stuff to play with in her room and when she was by herself, this particular time, she picked her dolls. I think that perhaps dolls are NOT evil tools of the Religious Right trying to turn all little girls into perfect little Mommies, but perhaps fun toys that allow them to imitate their mommies. And if little boys want to play dolls, dammit they should be able to do that too. And I'll continue to give Stella all sorts of toys, not just "girly" ones, but I'm not going to deny that I have a soft spot for playing with dolls and I'm really touched watching her imitate me.
You know, she's also imitating her Daddy, because he takes really good care of her too. Let's not leave out the daddies!