Baby Dolls

A favorite doll is the child's first best friend, often much before they actually develop real friendships. To some kids it's a cherished security that they find in snuggling them and they begin imitating how their parents care for them, eventually playing out real life situations that sometimes astonishes you.

As a child I loved playing with dolls, combing their hair, giving them bath, changing their dresses. I remember while playing games like family, I actually had my doll get married to a friend's doll :) So when it comes to my girls, it's no surprise that they love playing with dolls too :) May be it's more of  a girl thing. Don't get me wrong, I want them to have interest in sports, board games too, but believe me, Anvesha and Anvika are both naturally drawn towards playing with dolls. They have a huge doll house where all of their Barbies are kept- Elsa, Anna, Beauty, Supergirl, Snowhite, Ariel..... and many more.

Speaking of dolls, their current favorite is playing with baby dolls. From the moment they both wake up in the morning, till the time they sleep, it all about these silicon creatures. And we have these baby dolls in various shapes and sizes too :) In order to avoid any conflict among the two (which of course will still happen no matter what we do), we have a baby designated to each one of them. These days the baby dolls come with a magic milk bottle where the milk magically disappears when you feed the baby. Isn't it so cool?

So the way it works out is that Anvesha is responsible for HER baby and Anvika is responsible for HER baby and by responsible I mean feeding their babies, putting them to bed with blankets and pillow, giving them bath, reading a book etc. One day I was really amused when I found all the babies next to each other and I asked Anvesha what was going on. Very innocently she replied that our babies are having a sleepover :) 

Conflict arises when Anvika takes away Anvesha's baby and the two get into a fight. So, no matter what we do, they will still fight. 

Keeping the fun part aside, I feel there are also some developmental benefits of playing with baby dolls that apply to girls as well as boys. One main one is that they develop caring and nurturing skills. Looking at the adults, the kids learnt about caring for their baby- feeding them, keeping them warm, cleaning them etc. Some dolls come with zippers and buttons and that is one great way of helping a child learn how to button- unbutton, use zippers, tie a knot etc. With the help of Anvika's baby I am also able to teach her about the body parts and to Anvesha I am able to teach her about the 'good touch' and 'bad touch'. 

 I don't care if people call my girls doing only girly stuff and I do not want to develop any kind of pressure on them to play with something else too. If that's how their personality is shaping up, so be it. Yes, sometimes it does get overwhelming to watch my girls play with only dolls, but I just want to cherish this phase. I am pretty sure when they grow up, they will have a smile on their face watching the old pictures of them with their babies.