Last Christmas, we bought a teenie preemie-sized Cabbage Patch doll for iBean. I knew that she wasa little young for it, but I thought there would come a time when she would be all about playing with dolls, dressing them, changing them, propping them up to teach them school and assign them homework. Telling them to be quiet and do their work. You know, regular girlie dolly stuff.
Wait. You didn't put your dolls in little desks and make them do assignments in their teeny notebooks? You mean that was just me? Hmm. Wait...I think I did that to my sisters...
Where was I? Oh yeah. iBean and dolls.
She is now 21 months old and starting to realize that babies are EVERYWHERE. The first time she met her new cousin Lily, she was not impressed. She gave that little flower child the stink eye and then moped around for a couple of days. WAH! Someone is smaller than me and more cuddly and her farts smell like roses! WAH! I want MY toots to smell like roses again! Why do I eat solid food? WAHHHHH!
Then, iBean discovered her Cabbage Patch doll. She has always been in her room, in her crib, sitting there, waiting to be played with. iBean finally decided that if she couldn't beat the baby craze, she may as well join it and have one of her own. She dug out a little knit blanket and wanted me to wrap up her dolly like Lily. She wanted to rock her dolly and sing to her. She wanted to feed her. With a BOTTLE.
My daughter, who just stopped nursing a scant two months ago, picked up a play bottle and started feeding her baby dolly while making slurping sounds.
SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.
She has never been exposed to bottle feeding in our house, my friends all breastfeed their babies. So where did this come from? Her brother. Sashimi, in his infinite loving wisdom showed her how to feed her baby, with a bottle. In his defense, there is no physical way he could actually nurse a baby. Not possible, not happening. But that one moment of Bottle-ganda was enough to convert her. That Cabbage Patch doll is bottle fed.
So I hid the bottle. I wanted to show her how mommies feed their babies from their breasts. I didn't get all wonky and actually try to nurse the doll. I just held it to my chest (over my clothes) and made drinking sounds. iBean looked at me like I was from another dimension. I put the dolly on her chest and made drinking sounds. She lifted her baby up, looked at her, then grabbed the bottle and kept feeding.
ACK.
I'm not mental or anything. I think it's crazy cute that she wants to take care of her baby doll and rock it and sing to it. But I just want to convince her NOW that breastfeeding is the way mommies are meant to feed their babies. And show her that it's normal and ok. And I want to melt that damn yellow bottle into the bottom of a pan. And then maybe mail it to the Cabbage Patch company and make some internet video that goes viral while I chant DOWN WITH BOTTLES! MORE BOOBS PLEASE! Well, maybe not in those exact words. Although if the man in charge of Cabbage Patch is, indeed, a man, I am sure he would agree with the boobs part of that chant.
I'm going to continue being my daughter's lactation consultant, but if she persists with the cutesie bottle, I may just have to convince myself that iBean adopted the dolly and that my daughter never produced any milk to begin with and that's why she thinks I am crazy for trying to get her to breastfeed.
Maybe I'll find some imaginary breastmilk from the imaginary breastmilk bank and slip that into the bottle.
HA!
Take that!
Eff. I am crazy.
