Upping the Estrogen

When I was a kid I used to take pictures of my stuffed animals. Like, family portrait style. I would gather them all up on the couch and pose them and then whip out my little rectangular camera and click away. Rolls of film of inanimate objects. I had a lot of stuffed animals. I was an only child. Have I mentioned that recently?

In fact a lot of the stuffed animals that my kids have used to be mine, most of which as an adult. I came to this parenthood thing complete with three duck puppets, one hedgehog and several teddy bears. Now the kids have appropriated them but only I know how to make the ducks talk.

The new stuffed toys in our house are the dolls. When Trombone was about a year old, we got him a baby. I don’t think we ever named her. He did like her for a long time and then she fell out of favour. Then came Fresco, a kid who talks animatedly to anything with a face. He did this hilarious thing with the doll at my mom’s house; yelled at it, grabbed its hair and smashed its face into the floor.

Well, we thought it was funny. We suspect it’s a pecking order thing.

For Christmas, Fresco got a doll of his own, a soft one with long hair. We named her Dave because at the time, Fresco was calling everything Dave.

Last week Trombone decided he was Dave’s caretaker so he played with her, gave her lunch, put her down for a nap. It was very sweet. When I was at Value Village on the weekend and I saw a doll for only $5 with red yarn hair and eyes that open and close (a rarity) I brought her home. Her name is Maggie and I told Trombone she is a friend for Dave. Of course now that Maggie and Dave are hanging out so much, old baby doll from last year wanted in on the action too. Today found all three dolls face down on our couch, having naps. I had to be quiet. Then they ate lunch. They almost went potty but I stopped them in time.

But it afforded me the opportunity to take pictures. Pictures remarkably like those I took when I was a kid, except, you know, with live models.

(left to right: Dave, Baby, Maggie)