The third and final installment from our beach trip. Seriously, the best vacation ever.
All the little babies
Arlo is a kid who LOVES her babies. It started with one, the baby now affectionately referred to as “Tia” that my brother got her for her first birthday. Then, Mama thought it would be fun to introduce her to the baby that had been mine when I was a child, a baby that became known as “big (buh)”. Little by little, we increased the number of babies that were talked about, played with and dragged everywhere. Every time we try to leave the house, the battle begins.
Arlo: bayas! (babies!).
Mama: You can bring one baby. Which baby do you want to bring?
Arlo: Tia
Mama: Okay, you can bring Tia.
Arlo: Two!
Mama: Okay, two. What other baby do you want to bring?
Arlo: All! (This is a new word that she’s found and uses liberally)
Mama: We can’t bring all the babies, Arlo.
and on and on it goes…..
When I could convince her to bring just two, Big was usually included in this equation. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVED this doll as a child but now, as the parent, I slowly started to hate it and understand what my parents dealt with every time I took her anywhere. When you take a doll that looks exactly like an 8 week old baby anywhere, people do a double take.
“Oh! For a minute I thought that was a real baby in the car cart with your toddler!”
“Why is that toddler carrying around a newborn?!”
It gets old. Not to mention the fact that Mama ends up carrying her most of the time anyway and she’s “Big”! Also, she’s at least 25 years old at this point and her glory days are over. She’s slowly falling apart and filled with scary foam pieces.
I decided that the only way I was going to be able to retire this beloved baby was to replace her with one that was even more amazing to Arlo. Enter: Gabe.
After watching my friend’s son for a couple weeks, Arlo has a new found love for penises. Yes, she’s finally discovered that some people have something that she’s never seen in our house, and she’s fascinated. At first, it was “pe-a!” “see!” and then it morphed into “pe-a!” “touch!”. I decided that the best solution, aside from explaining to her that other people’s bodies are their own, etc., was to get her an anatomically correct boy doll that she could see and touch as much as she wanted. And thus, Gabe came into our lives this week (I named him because I was tired of our babies not having names and she took to it instantly).
Not only does Gabe have a penis that Arlo can touch and see as much as she wants, Gabe is also waterproof making him a perfect bath companion. This kid has had more baths in the last three days than in the last three months combined!
So now, as of today, Big is finally retired and Gabe has quickly become a new favorite. She takes him everywhere and proclaims to everyone that she sees that he has a penis (he’s always naked but just in case you were wondering….)
Ah, toddlers.




